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BASAL CONCEPTS IN ^ 

PHILOSOPHY 



BASAL CONCEPTS IN 



PHILOSOPHY 



AN INQUIRY INTO BEING, NON-BEING, AND BECOMING 



BY / 
ALEXANDER T. ORMOND, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 




/}C>1¥ -^ 



/ 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1894 



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9' 



COPTEIGHT, 1894, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE 

The motive of this volume is a desire to restore 
the primacy of certain conceptions which are in 
danger of disappearing from our modern thinking-, 
and to reform others which, as I think, have been 
wrongly or inadequately conceived. Reflection has 
led me to dissent from monistic pantheism on the 
one hand, and from agnosticism on the other, two of 
the leading tendencies in the thought of our cen- 
tury, and to seek a metaphysical basis for philos- 
ophy that may adequately ground a rational theory 
of knowledge and being. With this end in view, I 
have sought to reconstruct philosophy upon the 
trinal categories of being, non-being, and becoming, 
and also to reform the current methods of meta- 
physics by showing that a completely rational idea 
of being can be achieved only when we represent it 
under our highest and most concrete categories and 
translate it into self-conscious personal spirit. The 
result is a spiritualistic metaphysic which leads us 
to ground the world of reality in an Absolute pos- 
sessed of supreme intelligence, goodness, and love. 

The order in which the basal concepts emerged in 
my own thinking, is substantially as follows : Hav- 
ing, by historic study and reflection, become con- 



Vl PEEFACE 

viuced of the identity of the logos with the principle 
of conscious personality, I began to see its value as 
a means of penetrating the opaque absolute of the 
agnostic creed, and obtaining an intelligible concej)- 
tion of its inner nature and connection with the rela- 
tive. The application of the logos-category led di- 
rectly to the personal construction of being and to 
the idea of the Absolute as personal, self-conscious 
spint. It was at this point that the dualistic light 
came to me in an intuition of the immanent move- 
ment or dialectic of spirit. For it became clear that 
the activity of a self-conscious spirit must be first of 
all intellectual, and that its primal intellection would 
be dual in its nature, including a positive intuition of 
"being's self or the logos, and a negative intuition of 
its not-self or the a-logos. And reflection made it 
clear also that the logos and a-logos are primal and 
mutually exclusive opposites, and that while spirit- 
ual being is to be conceived as exercising internally 
the activity which intuites the loositive and negative 
terms, yet the object of the negative intuition, the 
a-logos, must be excluded from being as its oppo- 
site; that is, as non-being. 

The exclusion of non-being from being as its op- 
posite, never to be identified with it, laid the foun- 
dations of a dualistic creed, and through it of a 
reform of spiritual dialectic in the direction of a. 
non-pantheistic theory of creation and the connection 
of the Absolute with the sphere of relativity. For it 
became clear that the primal intuition of non-being 
would motive an outgo of volitional energy into the 



PREFACE VU 

negative sphere for its suppression and annulment 
and that the nature generated out of it would not be 
pure being but becoming, a creature including in its 
constitution opposite moments of being and non-be- 
ing. Thus, through the conception of the negative 
datum, I began to see that an answer might be forth- 
coming to the hitherto unresolved problem, why the 
creative energy of the Absolute falls short of an ab- 
solute result and only produces the finite and imper- 
fect. The book itself must answer the question how 
far the solution is to be regarded as satisfactory. 
For the last, but not least important, insight I have 
to thank the great master of thinking, Aristotle. 
The identification of his category of self - activity 
with the nature of absolute and self-existent being, 
was the " holding turn " that reduced all the ele- 
ments to final unity and coherence. 

In the unfolding of these basal concepts a certain 
use of symbolism has become necessary. But the 
discerning reader will penetrate the shell to the 
kernel that it conceals. In conclusion, I wish to dis- 
claim any jDurpose to add another to existing sys- 
tems of philosophy, of which the world is already 
over-full. My ambition is rather, through the em- 
phasising of certain fundamental ideas, to impart a 
new spiritual vitality to the body philosophic. It is 
possible for philosophy to be spiritually dead while 
it is intellectually alive. But it is only through its 
spiritual energy that it is able to become an impor- 
tant organ of truth and to minister to the highest 
needs of humanity. 



V 



Vlll PREFACE 

I wish to acknowledg-e the great debt I owe to my 
honored teacher, the venerable McCosh, to the spirit 
of whose realistic philosophy I hope my own work 
will be found to be loyal. My acknowledgments 
are due to Mr. A. L. Frothing-ham, Sr., of Princeton, 
for important sugg-estions reg-arding- the principle of 
dualism and for kindness in reading and criticising 
my manuscript ; also to my colleague, Professor A. 
F. West, for painstaking and appreciative interest 
in my work and for many helpful criticisms and 
suggestions, and to my pupil, Mr. G. A. Tawney, for 
valuable assistance in reading proof-sheets. There 
are other obligations which cannot be acknowledged 
in detail. My indebtedness to the masters, Plato, 
Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Kant, Hegel, and 
Lotze, is too obvious to require special mention. 

Alexander T. Ormond. 

Princeton, January 20, 1894. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introductory, 1 

I. The Norm, 9 

II. Being and Non-being, 34 

III. Becoming, 44 

IV. Space and Time, 59 

v. Cosmic Nature, 70 

VI. Organic Nature, 83 

VII. Psychic Nature, 96 

VIII, Consciousness, 115 

IX. Morality, 135 

X. Non-being and Evil, 138 

XI. Communal Nature, 155 

XII. History, 171 

XIII. Religion, 194 

XIV. Art, 318 

XV. Knowledge, 335 

XVI. Logos, 355 

XVII. God, 366 

XVIII. Spiritual Activity, 393 

Conclusion, . » 300 



F^ 



BASAL CONCEPTS IN 
PHILOSOPHY 



INTEODUCTOEY 

One of the most striking features of contemporary 
thought is its weakness in respect to fundamental 
philosophical concex)tions. The masses of the in- 
telligent are espousing agnosticism, not as the re- 
sult of any reasoned conviction, but out of sheer 
inability to rise above the middle axioms of human 
thinking. To this weakness is due in great measure 
the prevalence of sensationalism in Psychology and 
phenomenism in Philosophy ; the former springing 
out of a kind of blindness of the soul to its own 
spiritual nature ; the latter from the inability of 
the reason of the time to conceive any categories of 
reality transcending the mechanical and sensible. 

It is the merit of the transcendental movement, in 
the thinking of this century, that it possesses an in- 
sight which leads it to refuse to respect the limits 
of phenomenism and to insist not only on the exist- 
ence of realities beyond the sensible horizon but 
also on the power of human intelligence to embrace 
these within the circle of knowledge. But tran- 



3 BASAL COiS-CEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

scendentalism, although it has the root of the matter 
in it, has not been able to wage on the whole a suc- 
cessful warfare against superficial tendencies. Kant- 
ism has failed on account of its only partial grasp 
of the conditions of its problem and its consequent 
aloofness from the processes of experience, while 
Hegelism, a much more competent theory, and one 
that has in it the true antidote of phenomenism, 
fails in part, because of its misconception of the 
true dialectic of spirit, a misconception that leaves 
the system XDrisoned in a closed sphere of absolut- 
ism. The clash of philosophical S3^stems is thus 
reducible to a conflict between speculative blind- 
ness on one side, and a kind of speculative aberration 
on the other, with no competent mediator in sight 
to heal the breach. 

Again, the trend of the scientific thinking of the 
century has been so strong in the direction of evolu- 
tion that faith in it has come to be a recognized test 
of scientific orthodoxy ; while, on the other hand, the 
religious orthodoxy of the time has felt constrained 
to take toward the evolution theory, if not an atti- 
tude of hostility, at least one of distrust, on account 
of its tendency to unsettle religious convictions and 
its apparent hostility to supernaturalism and the 
doctrine of final causes. A painful breach has thus 
arisen between the convictions of science and those 
of religion, and this breach has contributed still fur- 
ther to cloud the vision and to trouble the spirit of 
the time. 

The following inquiry is an attemjDt to deal with 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

tliese and other scarcely less grave issues in a way 
that will not be open to the charge of superficial- 
ity. We are convinced that the only radical cure 
for the limitations of our thinking is to be found 
in the discovery of profounder and more adequate 
categories. Knowledge is founded in categories, 
and its successive stages arise not primarily, out 
of the generalization of facts, but rather out of 
the emergence of new categories under which our 
generalizations are to proceed. We not only gen- 
eralize facts, but our reflection rises from categories 
of space and time to those of substance and cause, 
and only rests finally in the supreme ideas of unity 
and ground. 

Now when we seek to construe the ground of 
things adequately we are led by a necessary trend 
of reflection to translate it into the self-existent, and 
this again into the self-active energy of Aristotle. 
But self -activity in itself does not afford a final rest- 
ing-place for thought. Consciousness is either a 
mere by-product and spectator in the universe, or 
it is inherent in the lorimal essence of things. But 
self -consciousness is a form of self-activity and can- 
not be conceived as a by-product. And all conscious- 
ness is going on to be self-conscious. The final rest- 
ing-place of thought is found when self-activity and 
self-conscious activity are identified, and primal be- 
ing is translated into conscious self-activity. 

When primal being is conceived as conscious 
self-activity its highest category can no longer be the 
logos construed as abstract intelligence. The re- 



4 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

flection of Anaxagoras and Aristotle is not adequate 
on this point, but we must learn the lesson of the 
subsequent historic movement which culminated in 
the idea of the logos as a principle of immanent 
personal activity. And if the objection be raised 
that such a conception of the logos could not be 
completely attained without reference to religious 
history and literature, we would meet the objection 
with a plea of confession and avoidance. Philos- 
ophy must recognize its indebtedness to history, and 
especially to religious history. The highest spir- 
itual intuitions of the race have been achieved 
through channels of religious experience. We claim 
for philosophy the right to seek light wherever it 
can be found. If this light should come through 
the channels of sacred literature, that is no reason 
why philosophy should not avail herself of it, loro- 
vided she do not receive it on mere authority, but is 
able to translate it into rational terms and deal with 
it according to her own legitimate methods. 

The logos is the highest category of rational in- 
sight, and when applied to the primal self-activity 
renders a conception of its nature possible. In short, 
the cure of the agnostic blindness is to be found in 
the logos-category. This renders the immanent 
nature and activity of absolute being intelligible. 
In its light we are able to conceive a spiritual move- 
ment of internal conscious distinction and unity, 
which translates the Absolute into living spiritual 
energy and personal being. And this achievement 
not only intelligizes the ground of reality but sup- 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

plies the clew to its productive and generative re- 
lations to the world. 

For it enables us to achieve an intuition of that 
primal dialectic of spirit out of which the whole gen- 
erative movement of things proceeds. Here, as we 
see, one of the primal difficulties of reflection has 
arisen. The Hegelian insight has seized upon the 
dialectic, but has misconstrued it at a vital point. 
We must not only apprehend that the primal ac- 
tivity of being contains the dual moments of affir- 
mation and negation, but we must also realize, as 
Plato did, that primal opposites can never pass into 
each other. Being, therefore, affirms itself, but it 
does not deny itself, but rather its opposite. 

The problem of the negative becomes thus the 
last and most erudite issue in philosophy. If we 
yield the point that primal opposites may pass into 
one another, then the whole dialectic of reality be- 
comes a process of the self-affirmation and self-de- 
nial of being, and the distinction between being 
and non-being vanishes. In that case, however, the 
dialectic is shorn of its power as an explanatory 
princi^Dle, for it can never render conceivable the 
generation of a relative order from the Absolute. 
Pantheism is thus its logical outcome. 

If we maintain the position that primal opposites 
do not pass into one another, we then have the prob- 
lem of non-being on our hands. For then spirit 
must be conceived as affirming itself, but as denying, 
not itself but its opposite. Non-being thus becomes 
a transcendent opposite to being, that which it ne- 



6 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

gates, opposes, and seeks to suppress and annul. 
Tlie value of this conception as an explanatory prin- 
ciple, as we find in tlie following- inquiry, consists in 
the fact that it renders the genesis of a relative and 
imperfect order from the Absolute conceivable. That 
modification which difi^erentiates the relative from 
its absolute ground becomes intelligible when we 
are able to supply a motive for creative energy and 
thus conceive a distinction between the immanent 
movement of spirit and its volitional outgo in crea- 
tive and generative activity. This motive arises in 
spirit's intuition of its opposite, and its impulse to 
go out into what may be symbolically represented 
as the sphere of non-being, in order to annul the 
negative and generate positive reality in its place. 

We admit that the doctrine of non-being thus 
arrived at is not free from difiiculties. One of 
these arises from the necessity of conceiving non- 
being in a purely negative sense, and yet ascribing 
to it some of the functions of causation. This seems 
to involve a contradiction. We think, however, that 
the difficulty is greater in appearance than in real- 
ity. For it is conceded that effects in being may 
arise from the non-existence of positive conditions. 
Now, as the inquiry shows, the essential negative 
characteristic of the opposite of primal being 
is the absence from it of a ground or principle of 
self-existence. In view of this it may be symbol- 
ized as an abyss in which being has no support. 
A reality generated in such a sphere would partici- 
pate in non-being in the sense that it would have 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

no immanent principle or ground of self-existence. 
In tliis sense non-being- is a cause in a purely nega- 
tive sense and contradiction does not arise. 

Tliis absence of self-existence and this depend- 
ence on that which transcends it is, as St. Augustine 
profoundly shows, the differentia of relative and gen- 
erated being. It is that modification which panthe- 
istic principles are never able to explain, and upon 
which naturalism is ever stumbling into agnosti- 
cism. 

The same principle, as the inquiry shows, enables 
us to attain a rational conception of the ground pro- 
cess of relativity, which is that of a passage from 
immanent potentiality to realized actuality, an evolu- 
tion whose x3resupposition is a spiritual absolute, 
and whose stages are mechanism, life, and spirit. In 
the conception of the world-process thus achieved, 
there is a ground, we think, for the harmonizing of 
scientific and religious convictions. For if evolu- 
tion be real and proceed according to the categories 
of mechanism and the law of natural causation, the 
basis of science is established and her intuition is 
vindicated ; whereas, if mechanism and causality 
themselves have as their presupposition a spiritual 
absolute, and as their finality the evolution of spirit, 
the substantial requirements of the intuition of re- 
ligion have been met and satisfied. 

And this satisfaction will be the more complete if 
it is seen that out of the same grounds on which the 
whole historic process arises, springs also that prin- 
ciple of spiritual mediation which is one of the essen- 



8 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

tial elements in religion. The whole spiritual his- 
tory of nature and humanity finds its rationale in the 
postulate of a transcendent and self-existent being 
whose creative energy functions in the world as the 
immanent spiritual principle of its existence and de- 
velopment. This postulate grounds and rationalizes 
the whole realm of science and its categories, while 
in the sphere of the ultimate issues it provides, in 
the synthesis of immanence and transcendence which 
it implies, an adequate foundation for a Philosophy 
of Religion. 

The spirit of the time is not lacking in scholar- 
ship or zeal for the truth. What it needs most is a 
fresh baptism in the fountain of insight. Philos- 
ophy needs to become more truly historical by escap- 
ing from the form and entering more into the spirit 
of the world's thinking. She must also use her own 
eyes to look up into the heavens and down into the 
heart of humanity. The organ of philosophy is re- 
flection, but her highest gift is spiritual intuition. 
Through this she achieves the primal insight she 
needs to qualify her for her highest mission, which 
is to unify knowledge and heal the breaches of the 
human spirit. 



THE NORM 

Meditation on the liistory of thought leads to the 
conviction that Philosophy has a distinctive and in- 
dividual norm, and that this norm contains in it the 
secret of the highest wisdom. But when we essay 
to search the annals of philosophy for the idea that 
will express its essence, we find ourselves launched 
on a perilous voyage over an uncertain sea. The 
highest point of ancient thinking was that reached 
in the speculation of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. 
At the heart of this reflection there functions an idea 
as the inner motive of its activity and develop- 
ment. The thought of Socrates is psychologic, and 
he conceives the idea as a principle of generic activ- 
ity in the human consciousness. To stimulate this 
principle and develop from its activity a rational 
system of truth is the aim of all his teaching. Pla- 
to's thought transcends the psychologic sphere, and 
becomes ontologic. To his intuition the idea be- 
comes transformed into an ontologic archetype, 
standing objective to conscious reason and energiz- 
ing as the absolute formative principle in things. 
Aristotle's thinking is analytic and individual, and 



10 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

reacts from the transcendent nniversalism of Plato. 
The Stagirite attempts, and in a measure achieves, 
a reconciliation of the iDsychologic and ontologic 
points of view in his conception of the individual 
real as including, in one aspect, a synthesis of the 
universal and particular ; in another, a union of 
self-activity and i3otence. 

It is this latter aspect which is of interest here. 
Socrates had represented the idea as a self-active 
universal energizing in the consciousness of man, 
while Plato elevated it into a transcendent ontologic 
self-activity. Now Aristotle, in his distinction be- 
tween self -activity and potence, achieves, what Socra- 
tes and Plato were not able to do, namely, a rational 
basis for a distinction between the primal ground of 
things and the nature of things themselves. The 
primal ground is pure self - activity, pwxis actus, 
while things are a dual synthesis of self-activity 
and iDotence. While, therefore, the jarimal ground 
is complete in itself, and is not moved, things have 
a history in space and time ; they are not comi^letely 
self-active but have a movement that depends upon 
conditions outside of themselves. Their history 
thus falls into a conditioned series, and evolution is 
tlieir law. 

The world's thought presents no deeper insight 
than this. Aristotle barely misses a final and ade- 
quate solution of the profoundest issue of philoso- 
phy. But the Aristotelian chain is not complete. 
The question still presses, If the primal ground of 
things be a pure self-active lorinciple, Avhy should 



THE NORM 11 

not all the products of its energizing be the same ? 
Why should potence and its fruit, imperfection, exist 
in a system whose creative springs are self-sufficient 
and perfect ? To these questions this ancient spec- 
ulation has no coherent answer. The modification 
of self-activity, which constitutes the differentia of 
produced things, is brought in by what Hegel would 
call an " external reflection," and is left without ra- 
tional ground or explanation. 

The scene of our meditation changes to the open- 
ing of modern speculation, and the vision of three 
epoch-making thinkers rises before our eyes. Des 
Cartes' thinking, like that of Socrates, finds its start- 
ing-point in the human consciousness, and the idea it 
develo^DS is that of the psyche itself as thinking sub- 
stance. But Des Cartes does not identify his sub- 
stance with self-activity, conceiving it as relatively 
inert and motionless. His notion of the psyche 
turns out, therefore, to be speculatively barren, 
providing no adequate principle for rationally 
apprehending either God or nature, whose ideas 
are, nevertheless, inseparable from the human con- 
sciousness. The result is a practical failure of his 
enterprise and the breaking up of his sj^stem into a 
number of intractable and incommunicable spheres. 

Spinoza is the Platonizing thinker of this group, 
who transforms Cartesianism into ontology by rais- 
ing the uncreated substance of Des Cartes to the 
plane of absolute being, while he reduces the rela- 
tive substances, mind and matter, to the ranks as 
the attributes through which it manifests itself. 



12 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

But this ontologic transformation does not fully 
meet expectations. It yindicates tlie Absolute by 
swallowing up tlie relative, and with it the individual. 
Spinoza follows Des Cartes in his failure to identify 
substance with self-active principle. His absolute 
does not move, but stands there forever in the same 
place. Natura natuvans is not a self-active being", 
apurus actus, nor is the natura naturata a manifes- 
tation of this self -activity in the forms of relativity. 
The relation is static, not dynamic. The primal 
substance is simply a substrate of attributes and 
modes which rest upon it, but are not rationally 
grounded in its nature. In Platonism we find a 
lower and a higher insight. When thinking in the 
lesser light Plato conceives the archetypes as mere 
models and patterns which an external demiurge 
dips into the material, so to speak, and forms created 
things. Under the influence of the larger insight, 
he rises to higher views and identifies the arche- 
types with self-active principles which operate as 
the formative energies of creation. Spinoza does 
not rise to this higher insight of the master. His 
system is Platonism on the lower plane of the 
archetypes, conceived after the analogy of the Car- 
tesian substance and reduced to absolute unity. 
The pit of Spinozism is not pan-theism, but pan- 
substantialism. Its bane is its bondage to a false 
idea of substance, and its cure is to be found, not so 
much in the breaking up of its all-devouring unity 
as in the reform of its idea of substance. 

In Leibnitz we find a reincarnation of the individ- 



THE NORM 13 

ualizing- tliouglit of Aristotle. Leibnitz has learned 
tlie fear of the all-devouring One of Spinoza, and the 
cure, he conceives, must be brought about by a re- 
assertion of individualism. In his insight Leibnitz 
is a true child of Aristotle. He sees that philoso- 
phy has been bound and paralyzed by a false idea 
of substance, and he seeks to free her from her bond- 
age by going back to Aristotle and restoring his 
doctrine of substance as a self-active principle. Un- 
der the double insight his reflection breaks up the 
ontologic unity of Spinoza into a plurality of self- 
energizing individual monads, potential or active 
spiritual psyches, each an independent substance in 
itself, because it contains in it the principle and 
motive of its own evolution. Leibnitz is also a true 
child of Aristotle in recognizing the limitations of 
pure individualism and in seeking to ground the 
finite, developing individualities in a " monad of mo- 
nads," the equivalent of Aristotle's purus actus. In 
other words, Leibnitz's reform of the idea of sub- 
stance is a revolution ; it roots out the static con- 
ceptions which had dominated, and in a sense jper- 
verted, the early period of our modern thinking, and 
reintroduces into philosophy those dynamic catego- 
ries under which the highest fruits of ancient spec- 
ulation were achieved. 

But in face of the highest problems of philosophy 
we do not find that Leibnitz is more successful than 
his master. To the question how the existence of 
the imperfect and undeveloped is consistent with 
the existence of a perfect self-active ground, Leibnitz 



14 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

has no rational answer. We look in vain in this 
modern cycle, as we looked in vain in the reflection 
of the ancient triumvirate, for a datum from which 
an intelligible reason for this emergence of imper- 
fection from perfection can be deduced. 

It is clear that our meditation must still go for- 
ward. For philosophy, as distinguished from psy- 
chology, the development from Locke to Hume has 
chiefly a negative value. It furnishes a natural his- 
tory of the decline and death of speculation, smoth- 
ered in a mass of emxjiric details. In Kant, how- 
ever, the genius of philosophy again reappears. 
The Socratic thinking, modified by the Cartesian 
cycle, is again incarnated. Kant applies his ana- 
lytic to human consciousness in order to rediscover 
in it those universals the loss of which had plunged 
British thought into scepticism. The result is the 
categories, the most important single outcome of 
modern philosophy. These categories are in the 
Kantian system the self-active universals which 
translate ordinary experience into rational knowl- 
edge and thus lay the foundations of science. But 
Kant, like Socrates, puts a psychologic limit on his 
categories ; they are valid only for human cogni- 
tion, but in the transcendent ontologic sphere are 
without authority. The result is that i)hilosophy 
stands like a house divided against itself. Knowl- 
edge is only of subjective value while the shadow 
of an objective and transcendent Ileal forever haunts 
the consciousness of man and destroys his rest. 
Philosophy stands thus as a propounder of a sphinx's 



THE NORM 15 

riddles and swallows up all her own children because 
they are unable to solve them. 

Kant's failure was the motive of subsequent spec- 
ulation. With a backward Dionysian sweep his 
negations fostered the ag-nostic tendencies of British 
thought. The forward impulse is toward transcen- 
dentalism. The transformation of the psychologic 
principle of Kant into ontology takes place in 
Fichte and Schelling. Fichte's reflection seizes on 
the shadowy noumenal self of Kant, which Kant 
had endeavored to secure in a moral postulate, and 
translates it into the idea of an absolute ego ; while 
Schelling, rightly denying that Fichte ever com- 
pletely succeeds in reducing the recalcitrant object 
or A7istoss to subjection to his absolute, conceives 
the project of enlarging the continent of being so as 
to embrace both subject and object in the notion of 
the Absolute. Schelling then completes the onto- 
logic transformation of Kant in his dual conception 
of a transcendent absolute, in which subject and ob- 
ject, ideal and real, stand as parallels with a medial 
relation of indifference between them. But further 
reflection taught him at length that such a concep- 
tion of the Absolute is self -contradictory, and that 
the real absolute in his system is the point of indif- 
ference itself ; the evolution of w^hich leads again 
into the closed circle of Spinoza, a fate from which 
he escapes only by losing himself in the clouds of 
theosophic mysticism. 

In Hegel we have again a return from ontologic 
universalism to individualism. But the Hegelian 



16 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

return is on a higher plane than that of Leibnitz. 
To Hegel the individual is a category which con- 
tains in solution the universal and the particular, 
and from another point of view, the subject and 
object. Hegel's conception of absolute being is 
that of a self-active principle which includes the 
distinction of subject and object, and everywhere 
leads to individual manifestations. The self-activ- 
ity of the Absolute expresses itself in a dialectical 
movement which passes through three stages in its 
return upon itself and functions everywhere as the 
inner reality of things. Now Hegel has two modes 
of conceiving the movement of this dialectic energy, 
(1) the logical, which starts with the most abstract 
notion of being and represents the dialectical pro- 
cession of thought as a perpetual concretion which 
culminates in the highest and richest idea, that of 
absolute spirit ; (2) the ontologic, which reversing 
the logical order starts from the idea of absolute 
spirit, and represents creation as the going out of 
absolute spirit into objective self -alienation, through 
nature and finite spirit back into itself. The pro- 
cess of relativity is thus conceived as a drama of 
self-evolution and self-reconciliation of the Abso- 
lute Spirit in which it is begun, continued, and 
ended. 

Overawed by the magnitude of Hegel's idea our 
reflection might end here ; but the old questions 
come up and clamor for an answer. We admit that 
Hegel has touched the highest point of modern 
speculation, but we are unable to conceive how 



THE NOKM 17 

logically a notion which is, ex hypotJiesi, the thinnest 
of abstractions (in Hegel being is the last abstrac- 
tion) can be the bearer of a dialectic that presses on 
through self-affirmation and self - negation, never 
staying its footsteps until it has reached the bosom 
of absolute spirit. The truth is, the logical move- 
ment is a superinduction. The true dialectic is an 
external reflection ; it is the movement of the spirit 
itself refusing to be satisfied until it has reached its 
own highest category. 

The normal movement of Hegelism is the on- 
tologic, the self-uttering of absolute spirit in the 
sphere of its manifestations. But here we meet a 
difficulty. How is it conceivable that absolute 
spirit can evolve or utter from itself anything less 
perfect than itself ? We cannot conceive how abso- 
lute being, simply by an immanental dialectic, can 
generate from itself a sphere of relative and im- 
perfect nature. There is no datum in Hegelism, as 
we found none in Aristotle, which makes it possible 
to ground rationally the distinctive character of the 
relative, or to justify the Absolute in resting satisfied 
with a relative and imperfect result of its energizing. 
And since this ontologic aspect of Hegelism is its 
side of chief philosophic value, we conclude that 
Hegel fails, as Aristotle failed and as Leibnitz failed, 
to discover a rational nexus between the relative and 
its absolute ground. The chasm still yawns before 
us, therefore, so that if we start from the relative 
we fail to reach the absolute ground ; whereas, if 
we proceed from the Absolute, we are unable to 



18 BASAL CONCEPTS IN" PHILOSOPHY 

find any real passage across to tlie sphere of rela- 
tivity. 

In the foregoing" historical survey we have touched 
only the mountain-x)eaks of speculation, ancient and 
modern. The great lesson the masters have to 
teach is that philosophy reaches its highest category 
in the notion of being as, in its essence, self-activity. 
The intuition of this is as old as Socrates and Plato. 
In modern philosophy Hegel is the one thinker 
whose system has embodied the insight most clearly 
and adequately ; and for this reason, in spite of all 
its shortcomings, Hegelism reaches the high-water 
mark of modern speculation. Its failure, therefore, 
to ground rationally the sphere of relativity in the 
Absolute has thrown modern thought back upon it- 
self in a wave of philosophic despair. If the highest 
thinking fails to ground knowledge in an absolute 
principle, the logical inference seems to be that the 
attempt is vain and that agnosticism is the final out- 
come of philosophy. 

Before accepting this conclusion as final, how- 
ever, some further reflection is necessary. Let us 
assume that in the idea of self-activity philosophy 
has achieved its highest category. It is still possi- 
ble for it to fall short in two distinct directions. It 
may either fail to conceive adequately the nature 
and implications of self-activity, or it may overlook 
some datum that is essential to the solution of its 
problem. The first of these considerations will oc- 
cupy the remainder of this chapter. It will be con- 
ceded, we think, that a cardinal fault of old Platonism 



THE NORM 19 

is its tendency to represent the self-active ideas or 
archetypes as independent entities, transcendent 
and objective to the mind of the Creator. And since 
these archetypes constituted the whole form and 
structure of rational conception and knowledge, a 
tendency inevitably arose in later Platonic thinking" 
to separate the Creator from the world of forms and 
to regard him as only negatively conceivable, and 
therefore unintelligible. This tendency was stimu- 
lated by the contact of Hellenism with the panthe- 
istic thought of the Orient, which forever oscillates 
between two poles ; the negative unity of the abso- 
lute ground of the world and the nothingness of the 
sphere of plurality and change. An absolute cleft 
was thus threatened between the world and its cre- 
ative ground. And for this difficulty there was no 
cure in the reflection of Aristotle. For while Aris- 
totle espoused the doctrine of Anasagoras and trans- 
lated his purus actus into vov<s or reason, this was 
conceived as abstract intelligence to which no defi- 
nable internal character could be ascribed. This was 
but logical, since the Platonic ideas had been reduced 
to forms of relative existence, and no categories 
remained for the inner characterization of the Ab- 
solute. 

Now, it was a consciousness of this widening 
breach, coalescing with a feeling of si^iritual distance 
and alienation from God, that motived those media- 
tional features which characterize the last efforts of 
ancient speculation. To this must be ascribed Phi- 
lo's hierarchy of beings between God and matter, as 



20 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

well as that catena of emanations from the unthink- 
able One down to the plurality of the phenomenal 
world, which appears in the New Platonism of 
Plotinus and Proclus, The true speculative signifi- 
cance of these movements can be understood only 
when we connect them with old Platonism and the 
issue which it left open. For to this later reflection 
the self-active ideas to which the term reason, or 
logos, came to be applied, could not be left in their 
alienation, but they were seized upon and introduced 
as mediators between the Creative One and the 
created many. And in putting upon them this 
function they were also hypostatized and clothed 
with the attributes of quasi-personality. The inter- 
mediate natures in these later forms of Platonism 
are not abstractions or mere essences, but they are 
beings possessing some of the properties of personal 
agents. 

The speculative genius of Christianity responding 
to a motive which was also active in these pagan 
systems, was able to take a great step in advance of 
their solutions. For while this pagan and semi- 
pagan thinking is able only to subordinate the logos 
to the Absolute One, and thus to heal the breach 
between it and the world in a merely external and 
mechanical way. Christian intuition takes a different 
road, and, denying the subordination and externality 
of the logos, conceives it as an immanent personal 
principle in the nature of the Absolute One. Thus 
understood, it becomes a medium in a double sense, 
(1) of the union and interaction between the Creator 



THE NORM 21 

and the world, and (2) of tlie conceivability of the 
creative nature. For the gist of the Christian 
reflection is that reason cannot exist apart from 
personality, and that personality is an immanent 
category of the primal being. Personality is, there- 
fore, the category that opens the nature of this be- 
ing and translates into intelligible terms its rela- 
tions to the world. 

Modern philosophy has been largely blind to this 
result of early thinking, and the consequence has 
been general powerlessness in dealing with the 
ontologic side of the philosophic problem. But it 
has been reaching jDarallel results in the psycho- 
logic sphere. The almost irresistible trend of phi- 
losophy, since Kant, has been toward the recognition 
of self -activity as the highest psychological category. 
Kant's doctrine of the categories is gradually con- 
quering the world. For we have only to construe 
these categories as self-active functions in order to 
recognize them as the analogues in the psychologic 
sphere, of the Platonic ideas. For just as in Pla- 
tonism the ontologic elements were conceived as 
impersonal and external to the creative nature, so 
in Kantism the categories are regarded as imper- 
sonal functions external to the real personality of 
man. The trend of post-Kantian thought has been 
toward the reduction of these categories from their 
isolated position and the immanating of them in the 
constitution of a personal subject of experience. 

If to the conception of self-activity which is de- 
veloped in the movements sketched above we apply 



22 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

the historic designation logos, a term which the 
Stoics applied pantheistically to the divine world- 
energy, it may then be truly said that the pro- 
foundest activity of human thinking has devoted 
itself to the definition of the logos as the central 
category of reality. Early thinking, concerning 
itself chiefly with the ontologic problem, has in its 
efforts to reach an intelligible conception of the 
nature of primal being achieved the Christian idea 
of the Divine Logos, while modern thought, track- 
ing up the same function of self-activity on the 
psychological side, has been gradually attaining 
to an adequate conception of the psychic logos or 
category of human personality. In both lines of 
reflection, the ontologic as well as the psychologic, 
the true progress of thinking has been in the direc- 
tion of more adequate philosophic conceptions in 
the light of which self-active energy can be ration- 
ally conceived only under the category of the logos 
and as the nature of self-conscious and jDersonal 
being. 

In tending toward this result history only con- 
firms the verdict of direct reflection. True psycho- 
logic insight shows that the primal root of i^er- 
sonality is not to seek in the empirical stream of 
conscious states, but rather in that ego-principle 
which unifies the conscious life and gathers up the 
stream into the personal knot. Metaphysical re- 
flection confirms the psychologic verdict, with its 
own insight into primal being as self-activity. It 
sees that self-consciousness cannot be denied to self- 



THE NORM 23 

active being- without contradiction, and that self- 
conscious self-activity is personal activity. The 
root of personal consciousness is thus to be traced 
to the self-active intelligence, and not primarily, as 
the Aristotelians have supposed, to the passive or 
purely empirical element in man's psychic nature. 

Logos is construed here as the category of con- 
scious personal self-activity.* The Stoics applied 
the term to the energizing* |)rinciple of the world, 
which they conceived to be rational but impersonal. 
Here it is conceived to be the very principle and 
energy of personal consciousness. Being- cannot 
render itself completely intelligible under the cate- 
gories of substance or cause. It will not yield up 
its secrets if approached as abstract and impersonal 
intelligence. Neither is the Aristotelian insight, 
which saw in being a synthesis of self-activity and 
intelligence, altogether adequate. Being only be- 
comes intelligible when we translate self-active in- 
telligence into the energy of self-conscious person- 
ality. 

* In the following discussions the term Logos is employed in 
two senses — (1), as above indicated, for the principle of personal 
self-activity ; (2), for the personal manifestation itself. The con- 
text will indicate clearly enough in which sense the term is used. 



n 

BEING AND NON-BEING 

1. Primal being- is self-activity, and when viewed 
under the category of the logos it becomes self-con- 
scious and personal. If we ask why it is neces- 
sary to conceive primal being as self-activity, the 
answer is that no other category is self-explanatory. 
Causality, for example, simjily evades the philo- 
sophic demand by perpetually shifting the burden 
of explanation back upon a vanishing antecedent, 
unless, indeed, we translate causality itself into 
some form of self -activity. What is true of causality, 
holds of every other category. If, further, we ask 
wdiy, having identified primal being with self-ac- 
tivity, it is necessary to conceive self-activity under 
the category of the logos, the answer is very much 
the same. Every idea of self -activity short of one 
which represents it as self-conscious, will be found 
to involve a subtle contradiction. 

This is a hard saying. But self-activity is, in the 
last analysis, self-affirmation. We have also found 
it to be identical with purus actus, or being in which 
the highest possibilities are actual. Now self-con- 
scious activity is to us the highest conceivable cate- 



BEING AND NON-BEING 25 

gory. To suppose, then, tliat self-consciousness is 
not actual in the piirus acius, is contradictory. 

Moreover, if self-conscious, then personal, for per- 
sonality springs necessarily out of being's self-recog- 
nition of self. 

The logos is to be conceived as the principle of 
personality, and personality is self-realization. In 
order to grasp this clearly a distinction must be 
made between two things that are commonly con- 
fused — personality and individuality. If personality 
be definable as self-realization of self, then person- 
ality is internal to being and being may include a 
plurality of personal manifestations. But individu- 
ality is not internal to being. It is a comprehend- 
ing unitary category which characterizes being as a 
whole. We moderns have to a degree confounded 
personality and individuality and have made the 
former do duty for the latter. This has worked to 
the detriment of clear thinking both in philosophy 
and theology. We broach no novelty in the concept 
of personality here advocated, but simply revive the 
dominating idea of the early thinkers of our era. 
These thinkers distinguished personality from indi- 
viduality, and conceiving personality to be an imma- 
nent self-conscious process in being, saw no incon- 
sistency in coupling the doctrine of the multiperson- 
ality of the absolute nature with that of its unitary 
individuality. If this early insight could be restored 
it would soon prove its value both for theology and 
philosophy. 

The importance of the logos principle for pliilos- 



26 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

opliy arises partly from the fact that it breaks our 
bondage to external reflection, and giving us an in- 
sight into being enables us to identify our reflection 
with its own immanent movement. 

From this internal stand-point we are able to con- 
ceive primal being, or the absolute ground of things, 
as a self-energizing nature, the form of whose activ- 
ity is a circle of self-afiirmation in which is eternally 
realized distinctive spheres of self-conscious and 
personal life. This internal activity of being re- 
ceived a notable representation in the reflection of 
the early Christian Fathers. Their motive was the 
desire to achieve a philosophical statement of the 
Christian idea of God, and in order to realize this 
they were led to seize upon the notion of immanent 
conscious self -activity as the germ out of which their 
doctrine of the Divine nature was gradually evolved. 
According to this mode of thinking God is not 
to be conceived as a motionless unity like the 
Oriental one, but rather as self -active being, the 
ceaseless pulsations of whose energy generate dis- 
tinctive spheres of self-realization. Thus the pri- 
mal or Father-nature is represented as generating 
a second nature, an alter ego or eternal Son. This 
is the Divine Logos which stands as the utterance 
or Word of the Father, and is thus a necessary me- 
dium for the going out of the Divine energy in the 
creation of the world. 

But this creative logos does not complete the 
circle of the Divine energy. The creation is not 
at first an orderly and developed system, but rath- 



BEING ATSTD NON-BEING 27 

er a mass of unorg-anized and disorderly elements. 
Between this formless world and its author there 
is a chasm, and this dualism supplies the motive of 
a further impulse toward unification. Thus arises a 
third sphere of self-realization, that of the Holy 
Spirit, which is the necessary medium of the outgo 
of the Divine love into the world in order to bring- 
the creature through a process of evolution into 
union with the Creator. 

The full significance of this conception of the abso- 
lute nature does not reveal itself until we connect 
it with its presupposition ; namely, that this nature 
can only be represented adequately under the cat- 
egory of self-active, self-conscious energy ; that is, 
under the category of spirit. God is a spirit, and 
therefore he is eternally active, and his activity is 
perpetually realizing itself in spheres of personal 
self - manifestation in and through which it also 
comes into creative and organizing relations with 
the world. 

There is, however, in this early thinking, an un- 
reflected point, namely, the nexus or mode of con- 
nection between the Divine nature proper and the 
world. The immanent movement which this early 
intuition seized upon is a principle of absolute and 
perfect manifestation, but in itself it does not ac- 
count for the rise of the relative and imperfect. This 
issue was partially obscured for Christian thought 
by the concrete solution of the problem which was 
embodied in the Christ as God manifest in the flesh. 
It did come up in the development of Christian 



28 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

dogmatics in the problem of the double nature of 
the Christ, which, while asserted, could not be con- 
ceived, and was, therefore, authoritatively affirmed 
as a mystery that transcends reason and can be re- 
ceived only by an act of faith. Now, outside of the 
early Christian reflection, the only thought of mod- 
ern times that has reached this plane of speculation 
and the problems, which it presents, is that of Hegel 
and his school. The central idea of Hegel, as we 
have seen, is that of a self-active dialectic which 
constitutes the inner core and essence of being, 
and expresses itself in a self-realizing process, a 
going out and return upon self. Hegel is led, like 
the earlier thinkers, to conceive the jDrimal nature 
as absolute spirit, and he represents the dialectic 
as passing through three corresponding stages, giv- 
ing rise to a procession of Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost. To Hegel's intuition the Father-nature as 
subject-spirit goes out and embodies itself in an ob- 
ject which, as such, is its negation or not self. In 
this stage of alienation and distinction it is the 
w^orld, but in the moment of return into the bosom 
of the Father it is the eternal Son. Hegel thus, 
as Dr. Harris says, identifies the world with the 
second person of the Trinity. In the Hegelian as 
in the Christian intuition the mediation and unifi- 
cation of the world with God is the motive of a 
third sphere of personal manifestation, that of the 
Holy Ghost, the immanent spirit in the Divine evo- 
lution of the world. 

Now, the unreflected point of the early thinking 



BEING AND NON-BEING 29 

has beeu reflected in Heg-el, but not, we think, in a 
satisfactory manner. Hegel's solution of the knot 
consists in a restoration of the negative as a necessary 
philosophic datum. The Avorlcl is the other of ab- 
solute spirit, and the other is realized through self- 
negation. That dialectic by which absolute spirit 
traverses the circle of personal manifestations con- 
tains in it the moment of negation. In going out 
from itself it others itself, and this other is its neg- 
ative or not-self. The not-self is the world, and 
thus the world and its process are mediated by ne- 
gation. 

Philosophy made a great stride in this thought of 
Hegel. But it has not, we think, reached a final so- 
lution of the issue involved. For the immanent ne- 
gation by which being is translated into its other does 
not break the link of its self-identity. The other is, 
therefore, the same as being, only in an objective 
form, and must, therefore, be as absolute and as per- 
fect as being. Being cannot by self-negation reduce 
itself from the plane of perfection to that of the rela- 
tive and imperfect. Hegelism supplies no rational 
grounds for the modification which takes place in 
the character of being in its translation from the ab- 
solute ground, to the world, and for this reason it has 
not achieved a final solution of its problem. 

In the preceding chapter we pointed out that phil- 
osophy might fail either through an inadequate con- 
ception of its categoi'ies or by neglecting to take into 
account some necessary datum. The failure above 
indicated seems to arise from the latter cause. Both 



30 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

the early and the later thinking- break down at the 
same point. They fail to make it conceivable how the 
immanent activity of an absolute nature can give rise 
to a sphere of relative and imperfect manifestation. 
The first step toward the solution of the difficulty 
must be soug"ht, we think, in a denial that the dialectic 
of being- has been adequately conceived. In order to 
make this denial good it will be necessary to retrace 
the steps of the dialectic throug-h which the personal 
distinctions in the absolute nature are conceived 
to arise. Following the line of Hegel's reflection 
we see how the self-manifestation called the Son or 
logos arises. But the logos does not present it- 
self as the objective other of the manifesting nature, 
but rather, to take an analogy from the ego in the 
human consciousness, it stands forth as the uniting 
idea or self-conscious manifestation of the primal 
self. This ego is not the object of the primal self in 
the sense that it is its not-self, but rather in the sense 
that it is its alter ego. Now there is a negative 
movement which arises at this point. The ego con- 
sciousness arouses, by a necessary reaction, the anti- 
thetic consciousness of its opposite or not-self. The 
consciousness of the not-self is, thus, a function of 
the primal self, but the not-self which it intidts can- 
not in any sense he conceived as identical either" with 
the primal self or its realized other. It is excluded 
from both, and is their object in the sense of being 
their qualitative opposite. In like manner, in con- 
nection with the logos-consciousness of the absolute, 
we must conceive that there springs up by a neces- 



BEING AND NON-BEING 31 

sary negative movement, the consciousness of the 
a-logos as its antithetic opposite, and, therefore, ex- 
cluded from it. The object which thus arises can- 
not be in any sense identified with either the Father 
nature or the logos, but is to be conceived as an 
outer sphere of antithetic negation. The mistake 
that reduces Hegelism to illusion at this point may 
be stated as follows : Hegel, following the train of 
Plato's reflection in the Sophist, conceives that the 
distinction between opposites is only relative and 
that they may pass into each other. But Plato 
plainly indicates that in his whole discussion of be- 
ing and non-being he has the problem of classifica- 
tion or the basis of genera and species in view, while 
to the question whether there be an absolute opposite 
of being he has long since said good-by.* Now it is 
precisely this question of the opposite of absolute 
being on which Hegel is engaged. But it is clear 
that while the opposite of any species of being may 
be a species of being, the opposite of absolute being 
cannot be any species of being. The opposite of 
absolute being must be the negative of its being 
and must, therefore, be non-being, and it is contra- 
dictory to conceive that being and non-being can 
X)ass into each other. Our intuition will be rectus in 
curia only when we see clearly and cling to it, that 
there can be no passage of primal opx)osites into 
each other. The j)rimal negative of being is non- 
being', and this non-being must be conceived as a 

* The Sophist, Jowett's Translation, Ed. 3, vol. iv., p. 394. 



32 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

datum til at ever confronts the intuition of being, 
and which being ever strives to cancel and annul. 
Only so does the negative become a real datum in 
philosophy, supplying a negative ground of the dif- 
ferentia of relativity as well as a motive for the out- 
go of the energy of creation. 

We have, then, the intuition of an absolute nat- 
ure which by its inner dialectic activity, not only 
develops a conscious embodiment of the logos or 
alter ego, but through it also a consciousness of an 
antithetic otlier which negates its whole sphere of be- 
ing. To this antithetic other the term non-being may 
be applied, and we thus arrive at the notion of the 
Absolute as becoming conscious through its logos- 
consciousness, by a negative movement, of an a-lo- 
gos, or outer sphere of non-being. 

In the idea of non-being we find a key to a prob- 
lem that has hitherto baffled solution. That prob- 
lem is the genesis of an imperfect and relative order 
from an absolute ground. To the question why the 
world should not be ijerfect, if it be grounded in 
absolute being, philosophy has had no answer. The 
answer here given is that the world is not to be con- 
ceived as the immediate product of the immanent 
energy of the Divine, but rather as its mediated 
product. The mediating term is non-being. The 
world can be produced only by the outgoing en- 
ergy of the logos and only in the sphere of non- 
being- and not in God. There is thus an element 
of nothingness constitutional to things, and this ac- 
counts for that modification which in the process 



BEING AND NON-BEING 33 

of being created, renders things mutable and im- 
perfect. 

That non-being is a real datum, is a concej)tion 
which philosophy finds great difficulty in realizing. 
Plato in the " Timaeus " has an intuition of it in his 
idea of vX-q or matter. But his insight halts, and he 
conceives the negative sometimes as the mere re- 
ceptacle of being and again as the mother of gener- 
ation. In the first point of view he represents it 
under the analogies of space ; under the second he 
conceives it to be a kind of material matrix in which 
the elemental forces, fire, air, water, and earth are 
generated and enter into the constitution of the soul 
as disturbing elements, of temperament and passion. 
Alexandrian Platonism identified non - being with 
the corporeal and the corjooreal with evil. Hence 
arose its determined hostility to the Christian doc- 
trine of the Incarnation and its decided trend to- 
Avard asceticism. Christianity avoids this extreme 
while recognizing the dualism between good and 
evil in the spiritual world, and identifying evil with 
negation. St. John has an intuition of the cosmic 
significance of non-being in the glimpse he gives of 
the drama of creation, and the darkness and chaos 
standing over against the light-giving Logos. But 
in the earlier stages of the post-Apostolic move- 
ment, the speculative genius of Christianity was 
largely absorbed in the development and formula- 
tion of its conception of the Divine nature, in the 
course of which the gnosis of the negative was, for 
the time, left relatively in the background. 
3 



34 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

The speculative motive for again bringing it for- 
ward was introduced largely from tlie outside. Man- 
icheism, which was an offshoot of Parseeism, and 
supposed to have been founded by Manes, one of the 
Persian Magi, had spread extensively over the East 
and ultimately came into contact with Christianity, 
upon which an effort was made to graft its leading 
tenets. The central idea of the system is that of an 
absolute spiritual dualism between two indepen- 
dent, coordinate, and antithetic deities, the Prince of 
Darkness and the Prince of Light, who engage in 
an eternal struggle for supremacy. Around this cen- 
tral core was aggregated a body of doctrines which 
were for the most part irrational if not immoral. 

The historic importance of Manicheism for mod- 
ern philosophy arises almost wholly from St. Augus- 
tine's connection with it, who for a time an adherent 
of the system, at length rejected it and reacted vio- 
lently against it. But Augustine, although he threw 
off Manicheism, was unable to throw off the problem 
which it propounded, the relation of negation and 
evil to God or the Absolute. We find in Augus- 
tine the fruitful beginning of a real gnosis of non- 
being. Running through his refutation of the Man- 
icheans, and his great work De Civitate Dei, is a 
current of rich speculation which culminates in that 
consummate flower of early Christian reflection, " The 
Confessions." The " high argument " reaches its 
climax in Book XII of De Civitate Dei and in Books 
XI and XII of " The Confessions." 

Augustine rejects the Manichean doctrine of the 



BEING AND NON-BEING 35 

positive nature and eternity of evil. It has its ac- 
tual origin in the will of the creature. All wills 
are primarily g-ood. Evil originates when the 
creature turns from God and chooses some lower 
good. Augustine distinguishes between positive 
and negative causes and conditions, and contends 
that it is folly to ask for a positive cause of an evil 
will. The positive antecedent of a bad will is 
a good will. The good will is not the cause of 
the evil will. Evil is the turning of the will from 
the supreme Good ; it has no positive cause outside 
the will that thus turns. The evil will has, how- 
ever, a negative condition, and that is the mutahility 
of the creature. This mutability is the differentia of 
creature existence and it has its ground in the noth- 
ingness out of which the creature is made. Augus- 
tine, in his doctrine of creation, opposes both old 
Platonism, which posited a primary matter, and Neo- 
Platonism, which taught the emanation of the world 
from God. Against these he develops his theory 
of creation out of nothing. Now in his whole re- 
flection it is plain that Augustine's mind oscillates 
between two inconsistent conceptions of this noth- 
ing. The view which he verbally espouses is that 
which perpetuated itself in later theology, and which 
takes nothing as absolutely identical with unreality. 
But the assertions which he makes about the noth- 
ing are consistent only with its negative reality. 
God did not make things out of himself or out of 
eternal matter, but out of nothing. The assertion 
" out of nothing " would be wholly inane if nothing 



36 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

were not conceived as entering in some way into the 
nature of the creature. Again, in connection with 
his theory of creation the problem of evil and its 
relation to God comes up. God is not the author of 
evil. The creature is onutable because he is made 
out of nothing, but things may be mutable and good. 
Mutability is not evil, but it introduces into a nature 
the liability to evil, since through it contingency 
affects the will, in that the creature having the op- 
tion of the supreme Good or the nothing, before it, 
may choose the nothing for its good and thus be- 
come evil. The trend of Augustine's real thought is 
toward the conception of evil as real though neg- 
ative, and, in like manner, toward the conception of 
the nothing which is its negative condition as a neg- 
ative reality. In other words, to the thought of 
Augustine the nothing is a datum which explains 
something, whereas the conception of it that got 
lodged in subsequent theological thinking is not a 
datum and is powerless to explain anything. 

The survival of Augustine's verbal doctrine of the 
nothing which identifies it with the unreal was fol- 
lowed logically by two unfortunate results. The 
first was the giving up of the whole problem of cre- 
ation as an unthinkable mystery. If the nothing is 
to be identified with mere unreality, then the propo- 
sition that God made the world out of nothing, can 
only mean that there existed no external motive or 
datum for the creation, and that the motive and da- 
ta of the world must be sought wholly within the 
Divine nature. The difiiculty is not escaped by as- 



BEING AND NON-BEING 37 

cribing the orig-in of the workl to a fiat of a Di- 
vine will. A fiat of will accomiolishes nothing' un- 
less it be accompanied by energy. Even on the fiat 
theory it is the Divine energy that is the iDroducing 
cause. Why, then, should we not say that God cre- 
ated the world out of himself ? This question is 
unanswerable unless we acknowledge the reality of 
the nothing. Rationally the only alternatives are 
the recognition of the reality of non-being or the 
surrender of the whole problem of the origin of the 
relative to the agnostic. 

The second unfortunate result has been the giving 
up of the problem of evil as an unsolvable riddle. 
We must regard evil as either positive or negative. 
If we conceive it to be positive, then we are driven 
either to the Parsee dualism, if we reg'ard good as 
also iDOsitive ; or to iDessimism, if we conceive good 
to be negative. If, on the contrary, we conceive evil 
to be negative and identify negation with unreality, 
we cannot but regard evil as unreal. This is the 
metaphysical assumption underlying all optimistic 
or other theories which conceive evil to be the mere 
privation of good, or good in the making. No 
theory of evil can be adequate that does not regard 
it as both negative and real. But unless negation 
is real this cannot be. 

We may try to escape these subtleties by seeking 
the source of evil in free will, and for this we have 
the example of Augustine. But unless we recog- 
nize the reality of non-being or the nothing, we 
can find no refuge in free will, for the question con- 



38 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

fronts us, why should free will be conting-ent if the 
freedom of the Absolute does not constitute liability 
to evil ? Augustine was able to point to the noth- 
ing out of which the creature is made as constitut- 
ing the ground of his mutability and the consequent 
contingency of his free will ; and so must we if our 
explanation is to have any rational force. But we 
then raise non-being into a real datum which ex- 
plains something. There is no escape ; either real- 
ity of non- being or a choice between a one-sided 
pessimism or optimism, or else the surrender of 
the whole problem as an unsolvable riddle. 

A philosophy that goes to the root-problems must 
face the negative. It will have not simply the prob- 
lem of being but also that of non-being on its hands. 
The crucial questions regarding the negative will 
be how its reality and its primal relation to absolute 
being are to be conceived. Now, as we have main- 
tained, the reality of non-being does not carry with 
it the supposition that it is any sort of a positive 
nature. This has been the mistake of Platonism, 
which identifies the negative with matter, or at least, 
with space ; also, of those modern systems which 
either conceive an abyss out of which both being 
and the negative arise, or, represent the negative as 
a hostile potency in the absolute nature which has 
only to be liberated from the bond of the absolute 
will in order to develoi^ actual disorder and evil. 
Non-being cannot be conceived as any kind of ac- 
tivity, or as a potency out of which anything de- 
velops. It has no type and can be represented by 



BEING AND NON-BEING 39 

no positive, constructive categories. It negates all 
positive predication. The only guiding clew we can 
have to its characterization is that of antithesis and 
opposition. It is what being excludes from its nat- 
ure as contradictory. Shall we call it energy, or 
cause, or substance f By no means. It is the nega- 
tion of all these. It is the neg-ation of energy in 
that so far as it enters as a datum there is a failure 
of energy to do work. It is the negative of cause in 
the same sense as Augustine conceives mutability 
to be the negative cause of evil ; not a generator of 
evil but the root of that contingency which makes 
a will liable to evil. It is the negative of substance 
in that it has no positive principle of existence in 
itself. It lacks the spring of self-evolution and self- 
perpetuation, and being the negation of these, it is 
the root of that mutability, that lack of self-sub- 
sisting activity, which constitutes the differentia of 
all creature existence. 

That the assertion of the reality of non-being is 
not open to the charge of absolute dualism, and that 
it is a very important and necessary philosophical 
datum, the following* statement will serve to show. 
Absolute dualism is a theory of the Parsee type 
which splits being into two antithetic halves, thus 
breaking its unity and perpetrating the same kind 
of an error in philosophy that polytheism is in the 
sphere of religion. But absolute dualism arises 
only when being is cleft, and positive, active, and 
co-ordinate principles are arrayed in antagonism to 
each other. It is needless to say that no such dual- 



40 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

ism is involved in the theory of non-being set forth 
above. In the first place, the whole conception is 
arrived at by the use of a unitary principle, the logos, 
for the interpretation of absolute being. The re- 
sult of this step is the conception of absolute being 
as spirit which expresses itself in self-conscious per- 
sonal self-manifestation. Absolute being is thus a 
necessary presupposition of non-being, and being 
itself is one. Its unity is not broken. 

Thus the first presupposition of the real is being. 
Now the intuition of non-being arises out of the 
spiritual dialectic. That same movement of intel- 
lection which reveals being to itself, also confronts 
it with the intuition of the not-self, an object which 
in the absolute sphere must be the negative oppo- 
site of being. The root of the dual intuition is thus 
found in the heart of being itself. The negative 
intuition which arises is simply the negative aspect 
of reality, which is qualitatively opposed to being 
and excluded by its positive nature. 

Now, that this negative is not to be conceived as 
internal and immanent to being is evident from the 
fact that it is being's opposite, i.e., that which be- 
ing denies and excludes from itself. The relation is 
one of primal opposites which, as we maintain, can 
never be conceived as passing into one another 
without gross confusion of thought. Negation as 
an activity is always being's denial of its opposite, 
and negation as the object of denial is always be- 
ing's opposite. There is no self-negation of being, 
but what being negates is its opposite or non-being. 



BEING AND JSTON-BEING 41 

This is absolutely true in the sphere of the Abso- 
lute. Qualification is only necessary for the rela- 
tive. 

Confusion on this cardinal point leads to the one- 
sided Identitdts PliilosopMe, as the Germans call it, 
which sacrifices distinction and difference to unity, 
and having- in the ground of the system eliminated 
the distinction between being- and non-being, is 
driven by an irresistible trend of logical necessity 
to its goal in a species of monistic pantheism in 
which the Absolute completely swallows up the 
relative. 

Non-being- as an objective and antithetic term in 
reality thus arises as a necessary consequence of 
being itself when conceived as spirit and construed 
in the light of the logos-principle. How, then, can 
the category of non-being be shown to be philo- 
sophically necessary ? Its value arises chiefly as a 
principle of disjunction and discrimination. So ap- 
plied it brings some vital philosophical conceptions 
to the birth which it would otherwise be very difii- 
cult to realize. In the first place it makes a disjunc- 
tion between the immanent and the exeunt energiz- 
ing of the Absolute not only conceivable but also 
rational, in the motive it supplies for it in spirit's in- 
tuition of its own negative and opposite. The very 
self-assertion of being' which is its essence will lead 
it to assert itself against and upon its opposite for 
its suppression and annulment. In the second place, 
as we have seen above, a true conception of non-be- 
ing renders the origin of the world-series and its 



42 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

relative character intellig-ible. The self-assertion 
of being- against its opposite not only explains the 
exeunt energy but also the origin of the world-proc- 
ess, as not in the absolute but in the negative sphere. 
The negative sphere is being's opposite, and is nega- 
tive in the sense that it lacks the ground-principle of 
self-existence which is the essence of being. Logi- 
cally then, a creature originating in this siDhere will 
be relative and mutable, its ground and rationale 
being not in itself but in another. In the idea of 
the negative we thus find the key to a problem over 
which all philosophy has puzzled ; namely, how an 
absolute energy could produce a creature that is 
only relative. The outgoing energy can produce no 
other than a relative result. 

The negative also renders intelligible the law of 
the relative sphere, which is upward development. 
If the world arises out of non-being and progresses 
toward being it follows that its process will be 
from the lowest categories, those which lie nearest 
to the nothing, through more advanced stages until 
it reaches its full development under the categories 
of spirit. From the material to the spiritual, from 
mechanism to teleology, is therefore the natural 
order of relative growth. 

The nature and necessity of non-being thus be- 
come apparent. It is incumbent on philosophy 
then to assert the reality of both being and non- 
being ; being as positive, self-subsistent, and self- 
active ; non-being as being's qualitative opposite. 
The category of being is the logos ; that of non- 



BEING AND NON-BEING 43 

being the a-log-os. Each is a necessary datum of 
reality ; being-, of its self-existent ground, its origin, 
positive nature, and development ; non-being, of its 
mutability, its dependence on othei', its tendency to 
disorder, dissolution, and death. 



ni 

BECOMIISTG 

We tliink that a rational doctrine of Becoming is 
possible only in the light of the dual categories of 
being and non-being. In the preceding chapters 
we have investigated these, and have been led to the 
discovery of a necessary connection between them. 
We have seen that a true conception of being leads 
to the assertion of its negative and antithetic corre- 
late, non-being ; and that non-being' cannot be con- 
ceived as an immanent movement merely, in the 
evolution of being. We have seen that if we con- 
ceive being as spirit, then non-being can be re- 
garded only as its lorimal and excluded opposite, 
as that which it perpetually denies and annuls but 
never becomes identical with. 

The category of reality is broader than that of 
being. The whole of reality has its negative side, 
and it is this negative side which being denies. 
The whole of reality cannot be being, for being is 
perfect and complete and could of itself supply no 
motive for the generation of the relative. Nor can 
non-being be conceived as internal to being, since 
non-being is negation and want and being cannot 



BECOMING 45 

be affected internally by these. The activity of be- 
ing- is, as we have seen, a dialectic in which spirit 
affirms itself, and denies and negates its opposite. 
Being never denies itself, but it denies and seeks to 
annul the whole negative aspect of reality. The 
processes through which this annulment is realized 
will, therefore, not be immanent, but will have their 
existence in the negative sphere of reality. Non- 
being is thus the negative side of reality and is it- 
self real. It is the primal opposite of being, that 
which being denies and annuls. In this qualitative 
sense it is external and alien to being, a term which 
must be overcome and suppressed in order that be- 
ing may be realized. 

How, then, shall the category of non-being be con- 
ceived and made available for philosophic reflec- 
tion ? It cannot be conceived literally as antago- 
nizing the energy of being, for it would then be 
transformed into a kind of being. Nor can we con- 
ceive it simply as the non-existent, since the non- 
existent is also supposed to be unreal. Non-being 
has no categories of its own, since all categories 
primally belong to being, and in the strictest sense 
it is, therefore, unrepresentable. 

We have seen, however, that non-being is a nec- 
essary datum, and in order that philosophic think- 
ing may get on, it is necessary that there should be 
some mode of representing it. Now, the negative is 
to be conceived as the opposite of being in the sense 
that it is what being denies and annuls. This rela- 
tion will enable us to represent non-being symboli- 



46 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

cally by simply applying to it the negatives of the 
categories of being. If, then, we conceive being to be 
a sphere of reason, consciousness, light, order, per- 
sonality, and individuality ; non-being will be rep- 
resentable as the opposites of these, unreason, un- 
consciousness, darkness, caprice, impersonality, and 
dividuality. If we conceive being to be creative, 
generative, formative, and constructive ; non-being 
will be representable as decreative, degenerative, 
deformative, and destructive. If we conceive being 
as energy that makes for ideal truth, beauty, and 
good, non-being will be representable as the nega- 
tive ground of falsehood, deformity, and evil. It is 
only necessary thus to unfold completely the idea 
and categories of being in order to reach an ade- 
quate negative conception of non-being. Non-being 
is irrational, unconscious, dark, chaotic, imperson- 
al, and dividual. It is decreative, degenerative, de- 
formative, and dissolutive. It is the negative prin- 
ciple of falsehood, deformity, and evil. Exercising 
the philosophic imagination we may represent it as 
an abyssmal gulf of darkness and caprice eternally 
confronting the Absolute intuition in opposition to 
his creative energies. 

We must not, however, in thus characterizing the 
negative allow our terms to mislead us. Non-being 
is a necessary datum of reason and an element in 
reality, but it is not representable to the imagina- 
tion except symbolically. Nor can we apply to it 
any category in the positive, that is, in the active 
sense. If we conceive it under the category of cause, 



BECOMING 47 

as we must, our term cause must be used in the 
negative sense. It is not the active generator of the 
properties of things which it is necessary to explain, 
but rather their negative condition. Want and ne- 
gation are negative but not positive causes, and 
non- being is a cause in that it is a metaphysical 
want in the nature of relativity. For since the rela- 
tive arises in the negative sphere, its self-existent 
ground will not be in it but in another. In this 
sense, non-being is a negative cause. 

We think it important that philosophy should 
achieve this idea of negative causation, for it rep- 
resents the only practicable mode of characterizing 
the negative element in reality. It is only when 
non-being is conceived as negative cause, that the 
mutability of generated things and their dependence 
on other can be understood, and it is only when we 
become able to apply this mode of characterization 
with insight and discrimination that we can avail 
ourselves of the true riches of the negative. 

The question then arises, how are we to employ 
the dual categories, being and non-being, as data 
for a theory of becoming. The first three catego- 
ries of Hegel's Logic are being, nothing, and be- 
coming. But Hegel identifies being with the 
thinnest abstraction ; i.e., the real disrobed of every 
definite and positive attribute. This renders being 
indistinguishable from nothing, since both are repre- 
sented under negative conceptions. Hegel is only 
logical, therefore, when he translates the negative 
movement of the dialectic into being's denial of 



48 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

itself and the wliole activity of being is thus con- 
ceived monistically as immanent self-evolntion. The 
reform which we think necessary is that the dialectic 
be dualistically interpreted and that non-being- be 
conceived not as being in the form of negation, but 
rather as the primal opposite of being, which being 
denies and annuls. The dialectic of being and non- 
being, in so far as it is real, must be construed as an 
ovitgo of being's energy into the negative sphere of 
reality, and its activity will be an activity of opposi- 
tion. 

This substitution of a dualistic for a monal con- 
ception of the dialectic of being works a complete 
revolution in it while preserving and in fact increas- 
ing its unique sug'gestiveness and power. So con- 
ceived, it becomes an activity in which being as self- 
active spirit, realizes intellectually in its first motion, 
a dual intuition of itself and its negative opposite. 
This intuition motives a volitional movement which 
is to be conceived as the creative impulse of being, 
embodying itself in the outgoing of energy into the 
negative sphere. The result of this volitional on- 
slaught ui^on non-being is creation, the generation of 
a positive nature in the sphere of want and negation. 
In this generated nature we have the origin of the 
species of reality we call becoming. How then shall 
the nature of becoming be conceived. In seeking 
an answer to this question, we must again revert to 
the antithetic data ovit of which it has arisen. Fol- 
lowing the line of reflection opened by the early 
thinkers and developed by Hegel, we have conceived 



BECOMING 49 

tlie world as the product of the volitional energy of 
the creative logos, while its evolution is the func- 
tion of absolute energy conceived as Holy Spirit. 

The question arises why this distinction is to be 
made between the energies of creation and evolu- 
tion. The answer will be found in two considera- 
tions. In the first lolace, while the Absolute is to be 
conceived as spirit, its primal activity must be in- 
tellectual, and thus will arise the dual intuition of 
self or being and of the negative or non-being. This 
will lead by close sequence to the second moment of 
activity, which is volitional and presupposes the in- 
tellectual intuition as its motive. The volitional 
activity, as we have seen, asserts itself transitively 
in the energy of creation. The Absolute conceived 
as thus energizing and motived by the intellectual 
intuition is the creative logos. We see then that 
the same reflection which leads to the idea of the 
volitional activity also assigns to it the function of 
creation. 

In the second place we have seen how the creat- 
ure which arises from the creative energy is gen- 
erated, not in being, but in the negative sphere. A 
form of being thus arises out of non-being. This de- 
termines the generation as beginning with the lowest 
categories and the creation will be, in its initial stage, 
next to nothing, and thus removed as far as possible 
from the Absolute. This distance between the 
creature and the Creator will motive a third activity 
of spirit in which it goes out into the created 
sphere in an energy of unification and love. The 
4 



50 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

process which results from this unifying activity is 
development or evolution. It is a deep insight that 
applies the name Holy Spirit to the primal being 
in the exercise of this activity of development. The 
inner core of holiness is an activity of unification 
leading to the realization of Avholeness or unity of 
being and the beauty of its manifestation. Thus 
arises what in theological language is called the 
procession of the Spirit, or in Scriptural phrase the 
moving of the Spirit upon the face of the deep. And 
this moving of the spirit is the immanent principle 
of the world-process, including both nature and hu- 
manity. It is true that nothing is made without 
the logos. It is also true that the unifying spirit 
is the immanent agency in the historic evolution of 
the world. 

To the generated sphere conceived as the product 
of the logos and as motived by the spirit, we apply 
the name becoming. The term is suggestive of the 
flux of Heraclitus, and it may be conceived under 
the figure of a flowing and ebbing stream. Becom- 
ing is not pure being, nor is it pure non-being, but 
it participates in both, and thus its nature repre- 
sents a dualistic synthesis. The idea of becoming 
involves dual and opposite tendencies to being and 
to non-being. The Heraclitean intuition had the 
keener sense for the negative side. The flux thus 
became a species of non-being and sceptical despair 
was the logical result. But becoming is as truly a 
tendency to being as to non-being. The energy 
that generated it continues, as we have seen, as con- 



BECOMING 51 

serving" and deyeloping- force, and thus determines 
the positive moment of becoming- not only as real, 
but also as dominant, so that negation becomes a 
subordinate and not a ruling feature in the system 
of things. "While, therefore, becoming in its ground- 
constitution is dualistic and its activity expresses 
itself in a perpetual oscillation between the posi- 
tive and negative poles of reality, the immanent 
energy of the Absolute conserves the positive forces 
and translates the flux into a movement of develop- 
ment from lower to higher stages of reality. 

It is only in the light of this metaphysical dual- 
ity that we can arrive at a completely rational con- 
ception of the nature of becoming. This major 
dualism is necessary to explain (1) the form of rela- 
tive being' ; (2) what may be called the comple- 
mental duality of its constitution. Becoming is, as 
we have seen, dual in its constitution ; it is a per- 
petual flux which is determined by opposite moments 
of generation and decay. Now, what is the meaning 
of this duality of form ? It signifies that the rela- 
tive is not a pure creature of absolute energy, that 
it cannot be monistically explained. The secret of 
its dual character is to be found in the fact that it 
is the generated product of energy that works in the 
negative sphere, and produces being out of it by 
the suppression and annulment of the negative. 
But this war against non-being is endless, and the 
negative enters as a moment into generated being, 
rendering it mutable, dependent, and contingent to 
decay. 



52 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

We find here also tlie key to another feature of 
the relative ; namely, the complemental duality of 
its constitution. In a self-conserving, self-subsist- 
ing medium a dual balance of forces would not be 
needed. But in the negative sphere from which the 
self- existent ground is absent, a generated force 
cannot be self-conserving, but must be conserved by 
its other or fall into the abyss. The only mode in 
which a relative nature can be conceived as obtain- 
ing a TTov (TToi is that of a complemental dualism 
of positive forces. This complemental dualism of 
forces, which, as we see, is not ultimate, but pre- 
supposes the Absolute, is the ground of a universal 
law of relativity ; namely, that of relative self-mainte- 
ncmce, which has an aiDjDlication to both matter and 
mind. 

Limiting our view to the former, the most philo- 
sophical conception of matter is that which regards 
it as reducible in its ultimate analysis to dual centres 
of force. The conception of a material monad as 
the unit of material constitution, seems to be irra- 
tional and nugatory. It can only be asserted in a 
postulate that can give no rational account of itself, 
and it holds in it no principle that can help us to 
rationally conceive its own persistence, or that can 
explain any of the characteristic material phenomena. 
If we i^osit the monad, it is necessary for us imme- 
diately to give it a fellow, held in the grip of a co- 
hesive and repellant synthesis, before we can take a 
single step forward. This indicates that the rational 
unit of matter is the duad and not the monad. It is 



BECOMING 53 

upon tliG duacl only that meclianical science can rise, 
and a metapliysic of matter lay its foundations. 

Assuming- the material duad and the law of self- 
maintenance involved in it, let us consider the basal 
category of the relative process ; namely, the Series. 
Reflection here will lead to analogous conclusions. 
The metaphysical dualism of being* and non-being" 
out of which the relative arises, can give rise to no 
series unless we conceive the complemental duad as 
the iype of relative being-. For we have seen that 
the mere notion of a dialectic of being and non-being" 
leads to the intuition of a flux, a mere succession of 
sparks, an alternation of origination and cessation. 
Decay, dissolution, and death are as real as their op- 
posites ; they are ever present moments in the rela- 
tive, constituting" the negative ground of its muta- 
bility and dependence. But the moments of origi- 
nation and cessation do not constitute the series. 
The principle of conservation in the Absolute is 
self-subsistence, self-identity, while its opposite in 
non-being" is absolute discontinuity, and dividual- 
ity. In such a sphere the relative analogue of 
absolute self-subsistence can only be a succession 
of pulsations in which the energizing centre of the 
expiring- pulsation persists and passes into its suc- 
cessor. This j)ersistent core is to be identified 
with the spiritual potence in the form of which the 
immanence of the absolute energy in the world is to 
be conceived. Thus the series arises, a synthesis of 
opposite moments. The series may be conceived 
either as discontinuity ever striving- to make a breach 



54 BASAL CONCEPTS IN" PHILOSOPHY 

in continuity, or as continuity striving- to heal the 
breaches of the discontinuous. The series express- 
ing itself in the category of change is a dual alterna- 
tion of cessation and origination in which a dialectic 
core of being persists. 

The series thus realizes the law of self-mainte- 
nance, and this law, conceived as the inner principle 
of the series, is Causality. Here the same funda- 
mental moments apiDear. The profoundest science 
of the time reduces the category of cause, on one 
side to the universal law of conditions ; that is, the 
principle by which all phenomena are connected in 
an order of dependence ; and on the other, to the 
law of dynamic continuity ; that is, the principle by 
which the change from cause to effect is conceived 
to be only a change of form, in which the substance 
continues the same. Both these lines of conceiving 
state the same ultimate fact, the dualistic nature of 
the principle of causation. The first point of view, 
confining itself more rigorously to the sphere of 
manifestation, simply embodies in its concept of 
causation the inner nature of the series ; whereas 
the latter more profoundly transcends serial limits 
of manifestation, and connects the changing series 
with its ultimate dialectic core. But this profun- 
dity, instead of transcending the sphere of dualism, 
simply leads to the "hidings of its power," for analy- 
sis of the elements of the material continuity which 
is presupposed, only reveals to our intuition that 
ultimate dialectical opposition of being and non- 
being which underlies all relative nature. 



BECOMING 55 

We conceive that tlie idea of relativity unfolded 
above, supplies the only completely rational basis 
for a philoso]phy of nature. In the first place, it 
enables us to see that the real clash of thought in 
regard to the origin and history of the relative and 
finite is not between the concepts of creation and 
evolution, but rather between those of creative dual- 
ism and monistic self-evolution. All theories of the 
self-evolution of the world are monistic, and may be 
classed under two categories : self-evolution from 
either absolute being, or absolute non-being. Now, 
from the standpoint we have reached here we are 
able to see, as by intuition, that self-evolution from 
absolute being- can never rationally explain the 
origin of relative and finite nature, nor can it give 
any intelligible account of its universally dualistic 
character. If the world is simply a self-evolution 
of absolute being-, then the product ought to be 
absolute and no relative category ought to show its 
head. If nature is a self-evolution of absolute be- 
ing-, then nature ought to be a sphere of perfect free- 
dom, and necessity could have no rational right to 
appear. The categories of relativity are wholly in- 
explicable from the idea of the world as a pure 
phenomenon of absolute being. 

Even more powerless is the idea of self-evolution 
from non-being-. This is the basis of the negative 
Dionysian theories and the theories of purely nat- 
uralistic evolution. To these the primal datum is 
some sphere of negative reality, the Dionysian 
theories conceiving- the evolution of the logos out 



56 BASAL CONCEPTS IN" PHILOSOPHY 

of the a-logos and relative nature out of the logos, 
while the naturalistic theories of evolution conceive 
the same process in materialistic terms. Naturalis- 
tic evolution postulates some primordial world-stuff 
tra,nscending the categories of organization, and, 
therefore, a species of negative absolute out of 
which organized nature gradually emerges. Now, 
in order that this absolute world-stuff may supply 
a fruitful starting-point for development, it must be 
conceived as containing principles of organization 
in its bosom. But in that case the organizing prin- 
ciples become absolute, and the dual categories of 
being and non-being are acknowledged. Natural- 
istic evolution is thus forced, by the simple logic 
that order and form cannot be conceived as arising 
out of the orderless and formless, to the positing 
of absolute being as one of its necessary condi- 
tions. 

The only species of monism that has any philo- 
sophic value is a monism that starts from the pos- 
tulate of absolute being, and conceives the universe 
as being the product or manifestation of an absolute 
self-subsistent principle. The world is then repre- 
sented as having the springs of its own being and 
evolution within itself, and its movements are all to 
be construed under the categories of self-manifesta- 
tion and self-development. We are able thus to de- 
velop a concept of the evolution of absolute being, 
but we find our logic powerless to ground a real 
relative order, or to rationally interpret its dualistic 
character and categories. 



BECOMING 57 

Pure self-evolution is a category of absolute be- 
ing- and has no place in a sphere of relativity. Nor 
does it furnish any adequate explanation of the rel- 
ative. If we start from it as the sole metaphysical 
datum, we are never able to bridge the chasm from 
absolute to relative, and if we seek to employ it as 
a relative principle, we then either elevate the rela- 
tive into the Absolute by positing the primal springs 
of nature's subsistence within herself, or we form a 
closed circle of relativity which excludes the Abso- 
lute and has no rational ground. 

We conceive, then, that the category of becoming 
is that of the whole relative sphere. Its presuppo- 
sition is a metaphysical dualism of being and non- 
being. Out of this dual fountain issues the flux, 
the flowing stream, a creature that is ever coming 
into being and ever ceasing to be. This creature 
acquires relative stability through the complemental 
duality of positive forces which forms the tyiDe of 
a relative constitution, and stands as the analogue 
of self -existence in the Absolute. By virtue of its 
persistence it forms a series. The series is the form 
of the law of self -maintenance. Its inner principle 
is causality, and by virtue of its causal connections 
the dialectic core of being passes from moment to 
moment by change and development, and the sprout- 
ing of consequents out of antecedents becomes a 
law of the world's movement. 

If now we apply the term creation to the genera- 
ting process by which the relative is grounded, and 



68 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

the term evolution to the process of growth from an- 
tecedent to consequent which constitutes its order, 
then creation and evolution become complemental 
terms, and a complete theory of relativity will be 
seen to involve both. 



IV 

SPACE AND TIME 

If the Absolute is a necessary postulate of the ex- 
istence of things, non-being is a necessary postulate 
of their imperfection. No reason can be found in 
the nature of the Absolute why g-eneratecl existence 
should be less complete and perfect than its self- 
existent g-round. But a reason for this is supplied 
by the postulate of that which is qualitatively oppo- 
site to being. We have seen how the intuition of 
non-being arises and supplies a motive for the out- 
go of the creative energy of being into the sphere of 
its qualitative opposite. This determines the char- 
acter of generated being in two ways : (1) the rise of 
things in the negative sphere determines them as 
contingent and mutable ; that is, as lacking a 
ground or principle of existence in themselves ; (2) 
the very necessity that creative energy should not 
remain immanent, but that it should go out or utter 
itself, is the reason for another essential character- 
istic of generated being. 

The law of all utterance is that what is implicit 
in the uttering agent shall become explicit, and 
that what is explicit shall become implicit. To the 



60 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

utterer tlie thoug-lit is explicit and the symbol in 
which it expresses itself lies coiled np in its bosom. 
When it goes out into the outer siDhere this order is 
reversed. The form uncoils itself and swallows up 
the thought, which becomes imiDlicit as its inner en- 
ergy and meaning. Thus the word is necessary to 
manifest the thought just as in Christian thinking 
the Divine energy utters itself in the eternal Logos. 

This law is universal, and it involves an inversion 
of the categories of being in its outgo into the 
negative sphere. It is the operation of this law in 
connection with the modifjdng influence of the 
negative, as above explained, we think, rather than 
any labored effort to trace the moments of logical 
reflection, that will bring to light the real forms and 
energies of the world. 

The most obtrusive elements of the world, as it 
presents itself to our cognitive intuition, are space 
and time and matter. Having treated of the genesis 
of matter in the preceding chapter, we shall devote 
this reflection to space and time. We must hold to 
the cardinal doctrine that the world has as its gen- 
erating ground an absolute being ; that this being 
is self-activity ; and that self-activity is to be con- 
strued in the light of the logos, as spirit ; that is, 
as self-conscious, personal, and individual. Self- 
activity is then an individualizing energy. It is an 
energy that is formally unitary, comprehending the 
whole and including distinction as internal and im- 
plicit. 

The inversion of such an energy consequent on its 



SPACE AND TIME 61 

outgo or external utterance, would lead to a trans- 
position of relations between its unitary and differ- 
encing activities. The latter, the category of divid- 
uality, would become explicit and obtrusive, and the 
principle of its operation would be the distinction 
and expulsion of point from point, a process which 
is endless and to which no assignable limit can be 
fixed. The operation of such a principle would gen- 
erate the relations of quantitative self-exclusion and 
externality. But the force of this dividual prin- 
ciple would be checked by the implicit unitary force 
of individuality which, when thus energizing in sub- 
ordination to its opposite, would take the form of 
continuity. The quantitative jDoints would thus 
fall into a species of dialectic, explicitly expell- 
ing, but implicitly comprehending all other points. 
Thus would arise that process of generation, that 
flowing out from points into lines, planes, and solids, 
which constitutes the central movement of all our 
space conceptions. 

We have only to translate this supposition into 
fact in order to obtain a rational idea of the genera- 
tion of space. For space is explicitly this princixDle 
of unchecked dividuality, this breaking up into an 
infinity of mutuallj'- expulsive points ; this wholly 
outering and self-repelling property of reality. But 
space is implicitly individual and unitary, so that 
every point includes and comprehends all other 
points. The law of spiice conception is thus the 
evolution of point from point in the process which 
generates lines, planes, and solids. 



62 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

How, then, is space related genetically to tlie self- 
active energy of tlie creative spirit ? We answer, 
mediately, through the modifying influence of non- 
being. Space as above construed, is to be con- 
ceived as a first resultant in the negative sphere, of 
the outgoing creative energy. The first fruits of 
the outflow of the creative energy into the negative 
sphere, is its transformation into a quantitative im- 
age of its absolute author. 

This we call ontologic space, and the question 
arises, what is the relation of ontologic space to 
matter ? We cannot regard it as a phenomenon of 
matter, nor yet as separable from matter. In the 
order of conception it is the prius of matter. But 
on the other hand, we cannot conceive its existence 
apart from the existence of matter. We cannot 
separate what the Absolute has joined together. 
The true relation will, we think, be apprehended if 
we conceive space and matter as arising out of the 
same generative activity, space being its form 
while matter is its substance. Form and substance 
are inseparable, while in the order of conception, 
form must stand as the prius of substance. Matter 
and space, therefore, though not to be identified, 
are as inseparable as substance and form. 

A distinction is to be made between ontologic and 
psychologic space. Ontologically considered, space 
is the form of matter. It is the principle of divisi- 
bility and continuity in the material sphere and is, 
therefore, objective and dependent on the creative 
energy that underlies the world. Psychologically 



SPACE AND TIME 63 

considered, when we abstract from ontology, space 
seems to be subjective, a phenomenon of our percep- 
tion. Kant conceives it to be the form of percep- 
tion, and Berkeley virtually anticipated the Kantian 
view by reducing it to a perceptive process. The 
doctrine of the subjectivity of space contains both a 
truth and an oversight. The truth is that space is 
not to be conceived as a motionless thing Ijdng 
wholly outside of the activity by which it is per- 
ceived. Berkeley and Kant are the authors of a real 
psychological discovery. We do not objectively 
contemplate space ; rather, we spatialize objective 
phenomena, and the mode of this spatialization can 
only be adequately conceived when we regard it as 
analogous to the generation of ontologic space — that 
is, when we con ceive our perception of phenomena m 
space as resulting from an inversion of the inner ac- 
tivity of the perceiving subject. Berkeley and Kant 
are following a deep insight, therefore, when they 
identify space with the form of external perception. 
But the doctrine of these thinkers contains an im- 
portant oversight. It does not take account of the 
objective factor, the ontologic conditions of per- 
ception. If we eliminate the objective factor, the 
incoming energy that meets the outgoing activity, 
we abolish perception. But if we recognize the 
objective factor, we have on our hands the whole 
ontological loroblem, and we cannot foreclose the 
case in favor of subjectivity, as these thinkers do, 
but must include the ontological as an integral part 
of our theory. When we do this, the intuition gradu- 



64 BASAL COITCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

ally dawns that, primarily, space is ontological and 
objective, and that in our psychological process we 
simply retrace the steps of a creative energy that 
has gone before. 

The nature of time is to be analogously appre- 
hended. The root of time, as of space, will be to 
seek in the nature of the creative activity. This ac- 
tivity, as we have seen, is one that is explicitly uni- 
tary and self -identical. But it implicates change in 
the form of immanent movement or procession, a 
movement which ever returns upon itself. Now, we 
have only to bear in mind the law of outer expres- 
sion, to be able to conceive the exiiressed activity 
which goes out u^dou and in the negative sphere, as 
undergoing a transformation, so that the category of 
change has become explicit and obtrusive. The re- 
sult will be parallel to that in the case of space. 
The moments of the inner activity which were all 
comprehended in an eternal consciousness will, 
through the transformation, have become explicit as 
a succession of moments or pulsations, each of which 
expels every other moment from itself. This will 
give rise to an indefinite plurality of moments which 
would be wholly disparate and disconnected, were it 
not for the fact that the self-identical activity, which 
in the Absolute holds the procession immanent, has 
now become implicit and functions as a principle of 
continuity. We have then a result analogous to that 
noted above. Explicitly, the moments are mutually 
exclusive and disparate, but implicitly each moment 
comprehends every other moment. The opposite 



SPACE AND TIME 65 

characteristics of time thus arise, for time flows, but 
time is also continuous. Time is the i^rinciple of 
separate events, but it is time that binds events to- 
g-ether in a continuous movement. 

Thus arises ontologic time, regarding" which we 
have to ask, as we asked reg-arding- space, how are 
we to conceive its relation to the material world ? 
In order to mark the distinction between matter, 
space, and time, which x>roceed from a common ac- 
tivity in the Absolute, we must note their variant 
relations to the sphere of non-being-. The dual con- 
stitution of matter arises, as we saw, from the want of 
self-supporting ground in the negative sx)here. The 
XDeculiar constitution of space arises from the di- 
viduality of non-being-, the absence from it of any 
principle of continuity ; while that of time finds 
its negative condition in the chaos of non-being-, the 
absence from it of any principle of orderly sequence. 
A cardinal point to be emphasized is that matter, 
space, and time have a common root in the Abso- 
lute ; they spring- simultaneously out of a commoiL 
activity, and their differential features are the neg- 
ative results of the medium in which they are en- 
g-endered. 

Now, we have seen that space is the form of which 
matter is the substance. How shall time be related 
to this complex phenomenon "? In a preceding chap- 
ter we saw how the serial form of becoming- origi- 
nates. But the idea of time is also that of a series. 
Time bears the same relation to the series of becom- 
ing that space bears to matter. It is the form 
5 



66 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

of the series, wliile its substance is that inner dy- 
namic causal connection which, as we saw, consti- 
tutes the principle of natural evolution. The two 
ideas are inseparable, and when we say that the 
order of becoming- is serial, we are also saying- that 
it is temporal. The form of the series, time, and its 
substance, causal dependence, are thus inseparable, 
though not the same, and we are not at a loss to un- 
derstand a tendency so marked in certain phases of 
modern thought, to identify the substance with the 
form, and to conceive causation in terms of pure tem- 
poral succession. 

Time thus conceived, we call ontologic, because 
it has its roots in the creative activities which pro- 
duce the world. This is to be distinguished from 
psychologic time, which arises in a way analogous 
to the rise of psychologic space, and regarding 
which the same problems have been mooted in mod- 
em thought. The solution of these problems need 
not delay us, since it is analog-ous to the solution of 
the space ]3roblems. It is true of time, that while 
it is to be conceived psychologically as the formal 
activity of the serial consciousness which appre- 
hends events in succession, yet this subjectivity 
must be qualified by the recognition of time as 
springing from ontologic conditions, and, therefore, 
objective. In thinking time we retrace the pathway 
of the creative energy. Of the modern analyses of 
time, that of St. Augustine is the earliest and one of 
the most interesting-. Augustine declines to regard 
the divisions of time into past, present, and future, 



SPACE ATSTD TIME 67 

as ultimate. There is in reality only the present, 
and there are three times, only in the sense of " a 
present of things past, a present of thing-s present, 
and a present of things future." * Translating this 
into psychological terms, we have a memory-pres- 
ent, a sight - present, and an expectation - present. 
But when he comes to the analysis of this present 
which subserves everything, Augustine's insight 
fails and he confesses himself baffled. 

Oontemioorary psychology is scarcely more suc- 
cessful in meeting the Augustinian difficulty. It 
distinguishes between a " specious present," which 
James picturesquely describes as " a sort of saddle- 
back with a certain length of its own, on which 
we sit perched and from which we look in two direc- 
tions into time," and the real present, which for- 
ever vanishes to a point. This real present the 
psychologist finds inexplicable, and no wonder, for 
it involves a datum, we think, which transcends the 
temporal series. The objective life of man moves in 
a series, but there is a point at which it transcends 
the flowing stream and contemplates it forward and 
backward from the standpoint of eternity. It at- 
tains this point whenever it retreats into the citadel 
of the I. That intangible and indivisible present, 
which the keenest analysis of empiric consciousness 
never traces to its source, is the voice of the I, whose 
function, in relation to the temporal series, is to com- 
prehend its plurality and change under its own 
ideal unity. 

* Confessions, Chap. xi. 



68 BASAL COTSTCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

If tliis conception be true, we have an ontologic 
explanation of the " saddle-back of time " which, 
from this j)oint of view, is to be conceived as rep- 
resenting- the mode of this ideal comprehension and 
the extent to which it has been developed in the 
human soul. The mode is ideal and original, but 
the extent is a function of experience and seems to 
progress in a direct ratio to the growing wealth of 
man's consciousness. To the child the grasp is 
small compared with that of the adult man ; to the 
adult savage it is small compared with that of the 
adult civilized man ; to the adult civilized rustic 
it is small compared with the comprehension of a 
Plato or a Newton. The " specious present " simply 
measures the triumph of individuality over plural- 
ity and change ; it is the resultant in the psychic 
sphere of the perpetual struggle of man's ideal self 
to overcome the relative formlessness of the actual 
and bring it into harmony with its own law. And 
in proportion as man succeeds in the struggle, the 
flight of the temporal becomes more rapid, its riches 
are emptied more and more lavishly into the basket 
of the present, and the circle of his individuality 
becoming more and more comprehensive, he feels 
the shackles which have bound him as a thrall to 
the mere temporal and evanescent, loosening their 
grasp, and his conscious life taking on more and 
more the image of the eternal. 

One of the profoundest of recent thinkers* has 

* S. H. Hodgson : Time and Space. 



SPACE AND TIME 69 

an intuition of the ontologic character of space and 
time, which, with matter in the form of psychic feel- 
ing, he represents as the constituents of all knowable 
being, and his subtle analytic is tasked in order to 
show how the constituents may be conceived as 
complicating- into all forms of organized existence. 
But they are represented as ultimates floating at 
large m a universe without any absolute moorings, 
and when the question of absolute being comes up, 
as it must to all speculative minds, this thinker can 
discover no exit from the sphere of relativity, and 
finds himself confronted with the hopeless problem 
of developing a rational theory of relative nature 
out of purely relative data. Time and space and 
matter are ontological elements of relative being. 
But they are not self-explanatory. They only sug- 
gest the problem to be solved, and the principle of 
the solution can be discovered only by looking be- 
yond these relative forms to the absolute springs 
from which they have emerged. 



COSMIC NATURE 

Hitherto we seem to have been dealing with the 
fragments of a world-idea. Now the whole vision 
begins to dawn, and in this chapter we shall seek to 
trace its outlines. The vision presents itself as the 
whole idea of cosmic nature, of the world as a 
sphere of mechanical activities. And just as in the 
former chapters we achieved the ideas of matter, 
space, and time, by applying the law of inversion 
to the outgo of the creative activities into the sphere 
of non-being, so here we must apply the same prin- 
ciple in order to reach a conception of the whole 
mechanical sphere. 

If we make a synthesis of space, and time, and 
matter, we have a concept of a sphere of mechanical 
forces and energies, and if we realize the connection 
of this sphere with its absolute ground, we have 
the concept of a world-spirit as the transcendent 
ground of the world manifesting itself immanently 
in the mechanical categories of the world-activities. 
Now, the inner material princijDle of this sphere of 
world-activity, as we have seen, is causality. How 
then is this principle to be conceived? We have 



COSMIC NATURE 71 

seen that it is the inner nerve of that world-series of 
which time is the form. But what we seek here is 
to determine the mode of that activity which we call 
mechanical causation. And in order to reach that 
determination, we must seek the rationale of the 
modification which self-activity suffers in the ex- 
ternal sphere. Self-activity, as we know, moves 
ever in a circle of return upon self. It is, therefore, 
self-dependant and self-conserving". The outgo of 
self-activity into the negative sphere simply breaks 
this circle and translates it into a series, and the 
nexus which holds all moments in the grasp of self- 
dependence is straightened out, so to speak, and 
becomes a link of dependence upon an antecedent 
in time. 

Causality is the activity in which this dependence 
on antecedents is realized. It has a double aspect. 
In the first place, it is a principle of external de- 
pendence. If the link of self-return be broken, then 
the pulsations of activity will be ever going out 
from their source in an external succession. Each 
will go out from and separate itself from each. In 
this aspect, mechanical causation is a self-alienating, 
disparate activity, which is ever breaking up unity 
into isolated moments and parts. But causality has 
another aspect equally essential, but not so overt 
and explicit. It is not strictly accurate to say that 
the movement of self-return is broken by the outgo 
of creative activity into the negative sphere. It is 
not broken, but is rather translated into implicit 
potency. In this form it enters the world-series as 



72 BASAL COT>^CEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

a principle of inner contimiity. Let us endeavor to 
construe this. We say that a is the cause of h, and 
that involves the distinction and separation of b from 
a in the series ; h must be out of a in order to be the 
effect of a. But if h be simply out of a, it is cut off 
from a's influence and cannot be its effect ; h must al- 
so be in a in order to be produced by it. In other 
words, there must be continuity as well as distinction, 
and the outer procession of the effect must be con- 
ceived as being- grounded in an inner procession of 
cause. 

Modern science is founded on this intuition of 
the dual nature of causation. It sees that the world- 
series and the principle of the external mechanical 
dependence of the parts of this series, can be rational- 
ized only by conceiving- as implied in it a continuity 
of the generative activity by which the series is 
produced. The basal insight of science thus opens 
to it the grounds and, at the same time, the limits of 
its own proper categories and principles. 

Custom sanctions the employment of causation as 
a regressive principle for the connection of con- 
sequents with their antecedent grounds. The look 
of causation is, therefore, backward, and its presup- 
position is always, the present of the world which it 
seeks to ground in antecedent conditions that have 
lapsed. But this regressive employment of causa- 
tion is merely a convention of science, and it is just 
as open to a progressive use. It then becomes a 
principle of forward world-development and evolu- 
tion. 



COSMIC NATURE 73 

The question then arises, how is world-develop- 
ment or evolution to be conceived ? If we reflect on 
the world-series we will be led, in accordance with the 
previously developed view, to regard it as the real- 
ization of a modified form of creative self-activity. 
How this modification arises and the nature of it, 
we have already considered. The fact to be em- 
phasized here is that the life of the series depends 
on its connection with this activity, and that it can 
be conceived as possessing any degree of relative 
independence and self-sufficiency, only when the 
creative springs are included in it. But the in- 
clusion of the creative springs i7i the series binds it 
fast to the absolute ground, since it involves the pre- 
supposition of the creative activity of the Absolute as 
the immanent source of the world's energy and move- 
ment. Now, if we include this creative activit}^ in 
our idea of the world-series, we are enabled to reach 
the conception of a forward world-movement in 
which each antecedent section of the world will be 
regarded as the matrix or spring of production for 
each section that follows, and in which, therefore, 
the principle of continuous development reigns su- 
preme. 

From this point of view we see that the category 
of world-development or evolution is vital to the 
life of science. For science is the intuition of the 
world-series under the category of causation, and 
wdiile causation says that every part of the series 
must have an antecedent condition, its deeper voice 
says also that in order to be completely explanatory, 



74 BASAL COiSrCEPTS IT^ PHILOSOPHY 

this condition must also include in it the creatiye 
ground of its being. The idea of world-develop- 
ment or evolution rests on this deep intuition and 
embodies, therefore, the ideal which science places 
before her, just in proportion as her intellig-ence 
rises out of the mistiness of abstractions into the 
light of conceptions that are concrete and adequate. 
The presupposition of evolution is that in the 
world-series, at any conceivable point, will be found 
the explanatory conditions of what follov/s. This 
presupposition is valid, as we have seen, only when 
in the world-series, at any given point, we include 
the creative activity out of which the series springs. 
But it is not obligatory on science, in its ordinary 
procedure, to make a constitutive use of this presup- 
position. Whether dealing with nature or human- 
ity, science may treat the presupposition as latent, 
and may construct her explanations in view of condi- 
tions which appear in the series. And this proced- 
ure is rendered not only possible, but rational, by 
the fact that the creative energy manifests itself im- 
manently in the world-series, and thus translates all 
its realized activity into the forces and agencies of 
the series itself. The biologist may, therefore, de- 
termine the life-series in view of natural, mechanical 
causes, and the student of man may find in the nat- 
ure of humanity the data of historic science. Each 
becomes a charlatan only when he grows negatively 
dogmatic and attempts to eliminate from his prob- 
lem the latent assumption of the creative gTound on 
which the rationale of evolution depends. But in 



COSMIC NATURE 75 

science as in religion, it is not as a rule he who keeps 
noisily crying Lord, Lord, that enters the kingdom, 
but rather he who, having caught a vision of the 
Creator in his works, follows in a reverent spirit 
those mechanical footsteps which symbolize the 
" hidings of his jjower." 

How, then, are we to construe the world-series 
when conceived under the category of evolution ? 
The starting-point of the regressive use of causation 
is the present state of the world. But when science 
adopts the category of evolution she must transjDort 
herself back to the beginning of the series, and look 
forward to the present as its goal. Regressive caus- 
ation is analytic, resolving the present into its past 
conditions. Progressive evolution is synthetic, con- 
structing from the conditions of the past the vision 
of the future. And in order that it may be really 
explanatory the evolution lorocess must be repre- 
sented as beginning with a datum that requires no 
antecedent for its own explanation. This datum 
has been represented under the category of absolute 
simplicity and identified with a point in the world- 
series, from which all distinction and determination 
have been eliminated. Thus Herbert Spencer postu- 
lates a condition of absolute homogeneity as the 
first datum of evolution, and the process of develop- 
ment consists in the rise and progressive complica- 
tion of distinction and integration in this undif- 
ferentiated medium. Such a conception of the 
world-process is open to a criticism similar to that 
which has already been made on Hegel's " Logic." It 



76 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

starts witli tlie thinnest of abstractions and professes 
to stow liow, by a species of nature-dialectic, tlie 
world passes from category to category in the path- 
way of concretion and complication, until it reaches 
as its goal, the world with all its present riches. 
But as in Hegel's " Logic," it is the rich spirit of 
the reflector himself that supplies the motive and 
stages of the dialectic, so here we must seek, not in 
the undifferentiated homogeneous, but rather in the 
highly organized and developed intelligence of the 
Spencerian thinker, for the motives and categories 
of the process he describes. 

We must do this unless we are prepared to admit 
that, either implicit in the homogeneous or tran- 
scending it, there must be assumed as a necessary 
datum of the process, an activity which contains cate- 
gories similar to those we have read into the proc- 
ess. In other words, the alternatives open to us are 
either a subjective and psychological construction 
of the evolution-process which reduces the world to 
an ontologic illusion, or an objective ontologic con- 
struction which seeks the rationale of the world-pro- 
cess in its connection with the creative springs. 

It is only this ontologic conception of evolution 
that is completely borne out by the investigations 
of science. Before the principle of evolution could 
be more than vaguely apprehended, science had to 
establish her great generalizations known as the 
laws of the conservation of energy and the correla- 
tion and transformation of forces. The law of con- 
servation asserts that, given a certain quantum of 



COSMIC NATURE 77 

energy, that quantum will remain constant, subject 
to neither increase nor diminution by the processes 
of nature. The empirical proof of this consists in 
the discovery that when energy disapi^ears its equiv- 
alent is always found to reappear in some other 
form. This, however, is no complete demonstration, 
and cannot account for the assurance of science, 
which rests primarily on its refusal to believe in the 
possibility of annihilation. The law of correlation 
and transformation contains the same intuition, but 
it also involves an additional j)ostulate, that of the 
continuity of nature through all its stages and proc- 
esses. The changes of nature, therefore, including 
the apparent superinduction of new spheres of being 
and new species of force and energy, can be con- 
ceived only as transformations of forces that already 
exist. Science speaks with absolute assurance when 
she saj^s that nature's continuity is unbroken, and 
that evolution can effect transformations, but is un- 
able to create any new species or increment of force. 
What is this but a deep intuition of a necessi- 
ty that appears also from other points of view ; 
namely, of the fact that evolution can be rationalized 
only by a presupposition that connects its process 
from the beginning with an inexhaustible reservoir 
of creative activity? Evolution is absolutely shut 
up to given forces. She can create none, destroy 
none. She can only work transformations in the 
materials put into her hands. She can have no 
voice as to how the forces she employs shall origi- 
nate, nor how their existence shall be conditioned. 



78 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

The vision of evolution is limited absolutely to her 
own things ; of the things of the creative energy she 
sees not so much as a glimmer in the dark. Beyond 
the limits of her vision rest the whole problem of 
the origination of natural force and the mode of its 
introduction into nature, the question of its possible 
increase or diminution in the primal springs, the 
whole question of the i^ossible teleologic meaning 
of nature, and the relation it may bear to larger and 
correlated spheres of being. These problems are 
only for an intelligence which is able to comprehend 
evolution as an element in a larger system of real- 
ity. 

No philosophy is complete, however, that over- 
looks the negative side of the world-problem. We 
have seen how non-being determines that modifica- 
tion of the world-categories which distinguishes 
them from absolute spiritual activities. Thus arise 
the relative and imperfect forms and categories of 
the world-series and the laws under which it pro- 
ceeds. We may say that in the positive world-proc- 
ess, so far as unfolded, negation is held in solution 
but not suppressed. And that this is true will be 
apparent when we consider that the categories of 
evolution have their correlative negative categories 
which are insei^arable from them. Dissolution, de- 
cay, and death are as real features of the world as 
evolution, growth, and life, and although, as will be 
seen in the chapter on Organic Nature, these are 
subsidized in a measure by the processes of higher 
organization, yet this result is accomplished only 



COSMIC NATURE 79 

by a new stride on the part of the positive construc- 
tive forces of nature. The negative tendencies are 
only overcome and held in check, and that mod- 
ern intuition which gives us the clearest vision 
of the processes and laws of evolution, also gives 
the clearest presentation of the dissolutive process. 
Evolution and dissolution, growth and decay, are 
inseparable, though antithetic categories. In the 
very heart of the developing process science discerns 
the seeds of decay in a tendency toward an equilib- 
rium of forces, the principle of differentiation, which 
is a negative condition of life in a growing organism, 
becoming a minister of death to an organism in which- 
the force of integration has ceased to dominate. 
Chaos thus confronts nature, dissolution confronts 
evolution, death confronts life, as an omnipresent 
issue. Everywhere in nature, as in the sphere of 
humanity, progress is achieved only throug-h a 
struggle of organizing forces to overcome and neu- 
tralize negative tendencies, and the catastrophe 
threatened by the equilibrium of forces can be 
averted only by the infusion of a new increment of 
organizing energy and the transformation of the 
stagnant mass into the conditions of a new develop- 
ment. 

We are ready now to perform the final synthesis 
through which an adequate conception of cosmic 
nature may be achieved. The ground of the world 
is both transcendent and immanent. Its transcend- 
ent ground is that primal energy which, as we saw, 
must be presupposed as the root and spring of all 



80 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

derivative being. On grounds wliicli need not be 
restated here, we are led to posit the outgo of tliis 
primal self-activity into tlie sphere of non-being, 
where, in accordance with the law of external self- 
expression, it is translated into the world-energy. 
The immanent ground of the world is this spring 
of world-energy or potence which we may call the 
world-spirit, and which constitutes the unfailing 
spring out of which its forces and movements 
emerge. This immanent ground is related to the 
transcendent ground as potence to actuality, so that 
the ultimate rationale of the world must be sought 
in the transcendent activity of the Absolute. 

Out of the immanent ground of the world arise the 
forces and categories of the world-series. We have 
seen how the material force which functions in cos- 
mic nature must be conceived as dual in order that 
it may be relatively self-maintaining. The rationale 
of this duality may be found in the same charac- 
teristics which determine the series, namely, the 
struggle of immanent and implicit unity to over- 
come explicit difference and dividuality. This dual 
opposition is conceived as constituting in the atomic 
elements, to which science reduces the material con- 
stitution of things, a balance of forces which condi- 
tions the stability and continuity of the world. The 
immanent ground of the world is also the immediate 
source of the order in which the categories of de- 
velopment make their appearance. The primal 
category is self-activity. But in the sphere of non- 
being this is inverted and translated into potence. 



COSMIC NATURE 81 

Tlie order in which this potence is translated again 
into actuality will be an inversion of the primal 
activity. Its first manifestation will be at the bottom 
of the scale, as far from self-activity as possible. 
Instead of self-activity it will be, explicitly, activity 
that is ever determined by the other than self. Such 
activity we call, in substance, material force, and in 
form, mechanical. 

Cosmic nature is the sphere of material force 
acting- under the mechanical form. Its proximate 
spring is the potential world-spirit, which actualizes 
itself in the v/orld-series and in the forces and cate- 
g-ories of mechanical evolution. The first stage of 
world-activity is that sphere of energ-ies which arises 
from a synthesis of space and time and matter. We 
call it the inorganic because here mechanism reigns 
supreme. The unitary and individualizing- force of 
the world is still implicit and, in a sense, transcend- 
ent, acting as a restraint on the externalizing- forces, 
but not entering- as a determinative factor into the 
constitution of things. In this sphere the world- 
series is mechanical, each part being conditioned 
and determined by its other. The inner law of this 
series is causation in its mechanical form, and the 
principle of its progress is mechanical evolution, 
the forward march of differentiation and integration 
in the course of which the simple homogeneity is 
transformed into rich and varied heterogeneity. 

But it has already been made apparent that the 
whole sphere of mechanical development, if ab- 
stracted from its ground, becomes irrational. It can 
6 



82 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

be grounded and the world rationalized only by 
connecting- tlie whole world- series with the creative 
fountains out of which it arises, and this leads us, as 
we have seen, back to the immanent power that is 
the immediate source of the world-energies, and 
throug'h this to the transcendent source of all things, 
the self-active energy of Absolute Being. 



YI 

ORGANIC NATURE 

In tlie preceding- cliapters we have achieved what 
may be called a deduction of the idea of a world- 
spirit or spiritual potentiality as the immediate and 
immanent ground of the world's being and develop- 
ment. This idea of an immanent world-g-round de- 
pends, as we have seen, on the postulate of a trans- 
cendent and absolute self -active spirit whose energy 
goes out into and operates upon a sphere of nega- 
tion and non-being, by which it is translated into 
the inner potentiality of the relative and depen- 
dent world. 

The postulate of this potential world-s]oirit not 
only grounds the series, but also the order of its 
development. We have seen how the mechanical 
categories of the cosmic sphere arise as the first 
entelechies of this potential ground. In these, dis- 
tinction and difference become overt and active, 
determining the mechanical series and its laws, 
while the unitary individualizing force remains im- 
plicit and latent as a regulative and conditioning 
principle. But it is the law of potency to gradually 
pass into actuality, and from the idea of the world- 



84 BASAL CONCEPTS IN" PHILOSOPHY 

spirit, already acliieved, we would be led to antici- 
pate tliat the next stage in tlie development after 
the purely mechanical, would be one in which the 
latent unitary and indiYidualizing- force of the world- 
ground begins to manifest itself in the series as an 
active constitutive principle. In other words, we 
would expect to see a transformation of the form of 
the series, and the manifestation of a force that pro- 
duces individual wholes, which will comprehend and 
unify distinctions and parts. Thus would arise Life 
or organic nature. 

What life is, is a question that has puzzled both 
science and philosophy. The tendency of science 
is to regard it as a complex product of mechan- 
ical forces, but how mechanism can produce an 
individual organism remains a mystery. Defini- 
tions of life are, as a mle, mere descriptions of its 
external phenomena. The physicist characterizes a 
living organism as a machine for generating heat 
and doing work ; the chemist, as a body composed 
of highly unstable compounds ; the biologist, as a 
plexus of organs and tissues which are adapted to 
the performance of certain functions, or, if he be 
speculatively inclined, as an inner correspondence 
to an outer environment. Such definitions, though 
true and perhaps adequate to their purpose, do not 
reach the heai-t of the subject, and fail to give any 
rational insight into the nature of life or its relation 
to other departments of nature. 

The cosmic series is coextensive with time, for, as 
we have seen, time and the cosmic series originate 



ORGAIS^IC NATURE 85 

together out of a common ground. But life is not 
co-extensive witli time. Life originates in time, and 
it may also cease to exist in time. The origin of 
life thus presupposes a section of the world-series 
from which vital phenomena were absent, and in 
which, therefore, onl}^ mechanical forces energized. 
At some point in the series a new phenomenon, which 
we call life, originates, and this new-comer has no 
other antecedent conditions among the active forces 
of the series than the material and mechanical. 

Nature presents, not a straightforward progress 
on a plane, but rather a hierarchy of graduated steps 
in an upward progress from plane to plane. Let 
us develop this conception a little farther. Joseph 
Leconte arranges this upward jorogress into four 
planes : 1, Elements ; 2, Chemical Compounds ; 3, 
Vegetables ; 4, Animals ; also into the four planes 
of corresponding force. Physical force. Chemical 
force. Vitality, and Will.* We thus reach the con- 
ception of the world-series as passing through three 
distinctive stages in its upward career ; namely, 
those of mechanical, vital, and spiritual force, and 
their manifestations. 

Now, naturalistic evolution is a theory which 
denies the necessity of grounding nature in a poten- 
tial spiritual principle, and which, therefore, seeks in 
the mechanical antecedents of life the conditions of 
its genesis and development. More than this, being 
committed to the postulate of material and mechani- 
cal force as primordial, it is incumbent on the theory 
* Conservation of Energy. Int. Sc. Series, p. 194. 



86 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

to maintain that all other forces, vital and spiritual, 
are mere modifications of the material and mechan- 
ical. Naturalistic evolution has on its hands, there- 
fore, two main problems : (1) that of the origin of the 
modification which is called vital force ; and (2) the 
mechanical explanation of all vital phenomena. 

In order to solve the first problem, that of the 
origin of life, it puts forward the hypothesis of 
spontaneous generation, in which the assumption is 
made that at some point in the world-series, when 
all the conditions are supposed to have been most 
favorable, life was generated from mechanical con- 
ditions and nature stepped into a new and higher 
sphere of manifestation. Now, if the fact, or even 
the possibility, of spontaneous generation could be 
established, naturalistic evolution would have some 
ground to stand on. But not only have all efforts 
failed to induce spontaneous generation under con- 
ditions which are a real test, but these experi- 
mental efforts tend toward the establishment of a 
negative. Not only is this the case, but the uni- 
versal mode, so far as observation can extend, by 
which nature keeps up her organic supply, is dead 
against the hypothesis. If nature is capable at all 
of generating vital out of mechanical force, by an 
immediate process, this ought to be a permanent 
possession after life has once appeared. But, as 
Leconte and others have pointed out, while physi- 
cal and chemical forces are being constantly trans- 
formed into vital force, an essential condition of this 
change is the presence of living matter. The trans- 



ORGANIC NATURE 87 

formation of force to a higher sphere esemplifies, 
here and everywhere, the law that like only pro- 
duces like, and in order that a qualitative difference 
may arise, its analogue must be presupposed in the 
conditions out of which it arises. 

The truth of the matter seems to be that the hy- 
pothesis of spontaneous generation involves, in ad- 
dition to its other difficulties, a subtle violation of 
the logical principle, Ex nihilo nihil ft, which ration- 
ally signifies that nothing can arise as an effect or 
manifestation, which has not something akin to it 
in its conditions and grounds. In the economy of nat- 
ure, life itself is one of the conditions of life. This 
is the law of the life-series, and it is therefore regu- 
lative of the whole sphere of biological evolution. 

If we deny to naturalistic evolution its right to 
assert spontaneous generation, we take away from 
its grasp the whole sphere of origins. For in that 
case those transformations which an energy under- 
goes in passing from one sphere of force to another 
would necessarily be conceived as being mediated in 
some way by the higher force into which it is trans- 
formed. And this would clearly mark the limit of 
the principle of naturalistic evolution. Given any 
species of force, this may differentiate and distribute 
itself indefinitely, and thus give rise to a movement 
of development on its own plane. But it is strictly 
limited to this plane, and when the problem is, how 
nature is to rise to another plane and realize another 
species of force, here the naturalistic principle is 
powerless ; for, as we have seen, nature only makes 



88 BASAL CONCEPTS IIST PIIILOSOPllY 

this step tlirougli the mediation of the higher force 
itself, and in order that the first step may be taken 
into this higher sxDhere, we must jDresuppose the 
archetype of tlie higher force as an element in the 
ground out of which the movement arises. And if 
we generalize this condition, we reach a position 
from which we can assert that evolution, in order to 
be possible without limit, must be grounded in a 
spiritual principle which refers ultimately back to 
an absolute first cause of the world ; whereas, if this 
spiritual principle be abstracted from or denied, 
evolution is limited strictly to the movement of a 
given force along a single plane. Thus if phj'sical 
and chemical force be given, the conditions of me- 
chanical evolution in the sphere of the inorganic are 
present. Again, if we sup^DOse that vital force has 
been somehow achieved, the conditions of biologi- 
cal evolution are then present. But for the genesis 
of these several species of force through which 
nature is lifted to successively higher planes of ac- 
tivity, the principle of naturalistic evolution sup- 
plies no adequate cause. 

The second problem which naturalistic evolution 
has on its hands is the mechanical explanation of 
vital phenomena. To naturalistic evolution mechan- 
ical force, that is, physical and chemical, is ihefo7is 
et origo out of which all other forms of force arise. 
Every other force must, therefore, be reducible to 
mechanical elements, and every form of manifesta- 
tion in the world-series must be traceable ultimately 
to mechanical antecedents and conditions. This 



OKGANIC NATUEE 89 

necessitates the supposition that life itself is a 
purely mechanical product ; for, inasmucli as living' 
matter is one of the conditions of the genesis of liv- 
ing matter, it follows, if the mythical hypothesis of 
spontaneous generation be given up, that the vital 
antecedent itself must be regarded as a form of 
mechanical force ; for if any portion of living matter, 
however small and insignificant, can be successfully 
reduced to a pure mechanical phenomenon, the 
battle of naturalistic evolution has been won, and it 
can no longer be conceived as impossible to reach 
a mechanical explanation of the most complicated 
forms and manifestations of life. 

What, then, is the obstacle in the way of the me- 
chanical theory ? It is simply this, that mechanical 
force cannot account for individuality. We mean 
by individuality here, the form of an organized prod- 
uct. A living organism is a body in which the 
mechanical forces are held in subordination to some 
unitary and co-ordinating principle. When libera- 
ted from the grasp of this principle, each goes its 
own way and the organism dissolves ; but while in 
its grasi3 and under its sway, they subserve some 
self-centred power which controls their activities and 
makes them builders of the org-anism. The conten- 
tion of the mechanical theory is that this so-called 
unitary and co-ordinating principle is not a princi- 
ple or a non-mechanical force, but merely a product 
of the conjunction of mechanical forces. But this is 
a blind assertion which fails to realize any of the 
difficulties in its way. For what then is death that 



90 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

breaks up the conjunction "? Has some mechanical 
agent necessary to the combination departed, or have 
the members of the corporation dissolved partner- 
ship by mutual consent ? 

The truth is that, from the standpoint of the me- 
chanical theory, the existence of a living- organism is 
inconceivable. Mechanical forces may develop con- 
tinuous series, and they may form aggregates and 
compounds, but the production of self-centred in- 
dividuality is beyond their province. Mechanical 
forces have no sense for wholes as such. They 
move straight forward to simple ends, or flow to- 
gether into united streams. They may be equal to 
the complexity of an organism, but its unity, its self- 
centred individuality, is a phenomenon that trans- 
cends their power. 

If naturalistic evolution thus fails to answer satis- 
factorily either of the problems that confront it, it 
is clear that the origin and nature of life must be 
dealt with according to some other principle. The 
weakness of naturalistic evolution as a theory of ori- 
gin, arises from the fact that it cuts itself off from the 
spiritual principle which supplies the only rational 
ground of the world-movement ; while its weakness 
as a theory of the nature of life is to be found in the 
necessity it is under of regarding the mechanical 
forces as alone primordial, and all other forms of 
energy as modifications of these. In view of both 
sources of weakness the theory plainly breaks down 
in its unlimited form, and must be limited in order to 
possess any value. We have already seen where the 



ORGAT^IC NATURE 91 

limitation must be applied. Naturalistic evolution 
cannot account for tlie origin of any new form of 
force, nor for tlie rise of nature from one plane of ex- 
istence to another. The problem of origins must be 
dealt with on some other principle. Nor can natu- 
ralistic evolution give any rational conception of 
the nature of life. Her mechanical theory commits 
her to a principle of explanation which regards ma- 
terial forces as the only primordial forms, and seeks, 
therefore, to reduce all other forms to the material 
type. The limit of the principle of naturalistic evo- 
lution is reached when the limit of mechanical forces 
and laws is reached. In so far as life and organic 
nature transcend the scope of these, just in so far 
do they transcend the limits of naturalistic evolu- 
tion. 

The foregoing strictures on naturalistic evolu- 
tion as a theory of life, are not directed against the 
principle of evolution. Their aim is simply to clear 
the ground for a more adequate conception of the 
idea of world-development. As indicated in the be- 
ginning of this chapter, no theory of world-evolution 
is adequate that does not include in it a recognition 
of the necessity of a world-ground out of which, as 
from a fountain, shall emerge its forces and phe- 
nomena. Again, no theory of world-ground is ade- 
quate that does not identify that ground with a spir- 
itual principle. Nor is any theory of the spiritual 
principle adequate that does not connect it as the 
immanent potency of the world-development, with its 
tra^nscendent source, in the spiritual self-activity of 



92 BASAL CONCEPTS IN" PHILOSOPHY 

an absolute nature. The world-evolution is tlius 
grounded immediately in an immanent spiritual 
potency, and mediately in the self-activity of a 
transcendent Creator and First Cause. 

Upon this foundation we are able to conceive a 
world-evolution that is at the same time completely 
universal and completely rational. For in this spir- 
itual g-round, as we have shown, is contained not 
only the rationale of the existence of a relative and 
temporal world-series, but also the rationale of its 
order and the succession of its categories. From 
this point of view it is rationally necessary that the 
mechanical forces and categories in which plurality 
and self-exclusion are most explicit, and the forces 
of unitary individuality most latent and transcend- 
ent, should first emerge. The world-series is thus 
grounded in mechanism. But if the world be 
grounded in a spiritual princi]ple, a point must come 
in its development when the latent and relatively 
transcendent force of unitary individuality will be- 
gin to show its head above the stream, a jDoint at 
which it will cease to be merely regulative, there- 
fore, and will enter into the series as a constitutive 
agent. Now, it is at this point that a new phenome- 
non will make its appearance. Just as soon as the 
unitary force begins to function explicitly, the nu- 
cleus of an organism will be formed, for, as though 
a vortical movement had been originated in some 
part of the series, the particles will begin to whirl 
and aggregate around some invisible centre, the or- 
dinary processes of physical and chemical forces 



ORGANIC NATURE 93 

will become tributary to this new movement, and tlie 
product will be a body that is self-centred and that 
has within itself the principle of its own unity and 
conservation. 

We have been representing- in figure what would 
haj^pen to the world-series when the spiritual force 
of unitary individuality begins to function in it as a 
constitutive agent. Dropping figure, we may say 
that this presupposition of a spiritual world-prin- 
ciple is the only basis on which a completely ra- 
tional theory of organic evolution can be grounded. 
It places at the heart of the world a principle which, 
beginning with the mechanical, has in it the poten- 
tiality of a progressive evolution up to the spiritual. 
The continuity of the world-movement is thus se- 
cured. Not only so, but it enables us to understand 
rationally why there should be a movement at all, 
and why this movement should be upward. And 
lastly, it enables us to understand rationally why the 
progress of the world should lead it from the purely 
mechanical into the biological sphere. 

A living organism realizes the form of individu- 
ality. It is unity overcoming and comxjrehending 
diversity. It is a synthesis, therefore, of mechanical 
and extra mechanical forces. On the side of its uni- 
tary individuality it transcends mechanism, and is 
the first overt spiritual manifestation in nature. On 
the side of its diversity it is a plexus of mechanical 
forces and processes. The mode by which a living 
organism develops is a species of natural dialectic, a 
conflict of opposite and antagonistic forces, in which 



94 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

the principle of unitary individuality is striving per- 
petually to bring tlie plexus of meclianical forces 
into subordination to itself. Tbe life of the organism 
is the progressive achievement of this subordina- 
tion. 

But a living- organism does not completely realize 
the essence of individuality. There is no return of 
the unitary force upon itself, and consequently the 
organism arrives at no consciousness of itself. The 
reason of this we conceive to rest in the fact that the 
unity of life is one which the spiritual principle 
achieves by going out of itself. It is a unity, in 
other words, which is superinduced upon a plexus or 
aggregation of mechanical elements which in them- 
selves, that is, in their atomic constitution, remain 
unmodified. These elements persist, therefore, in 
obeying iDurely mechanical laws, and simply, while 
held in subordination to an alien force, subserve the 
life of the organism. When this alien force relaxes 
its grasp or is overcome, the mechanical elements 
resume their autonomy and dissolution of the organ- 
ism ensues. 

The achievement of the essence of individuality 
would involve a.n additional step in the spiritual 
evolution ; namely, the completion of the circle of 
return upon self, and the consequent planting of a 
germ of siDiritual self-activity in the atomic elements 
themselves. This would transform mechanism in 
its roots and ground those modified spiritual activi- 
ties and categories which we shall come upon at a 
later stage of our inquiry. But in the stage of liv- 



ORGANIC NATUEE 95 

ing" organisms, this transformation has not been 
achieved. The unitary force asserts itself in an ex- 
ternal manner in the aggregation and organization 
of unmodified mechanical elements. The life-strug- 
gle is, therefore, an unequal contest between the 
forces of mechanism on the one hand and an undevel- 
oped spiritual principle on the other, in which this 
principle, for a time triumphant, at length succumbs 
to the mechanical forces, and the organism vfhich has 
reached the climax of its career as a living body, 
starts on the downward road of dissolution and 
death. The continued existence and evolution of 
life depends not on the individual organism, which 
perishes, but on the biological series, which is self- 
perpetuating. For just as we have seen that the 
world is grounded by the going out of the absolute 
spiritual energy into potency, so we find that wher- 
ever spiritual force manifests itself as a principle of 
individual organization, it carries with it this consti- 
tutional power to emit its ow^n potential in the form 
of a germ or norm, and thus establish the nucleus of 
another organism. Through this going out of self- 
activity into potency the biological scale is made 
continuous, and the basis of an evolution is secured ; 
an evolution which depends formally on the spiritual 
ground-principle, and which in its process obeys 
those laws and categories of development and he- 
redity which it is the business of biological science 
to discover and formulate. 



VII 

PSYCHIC ISTATURE 

We have followed the evolution of the world- 
series through the stages of mechanism and life, 
and have seen how this progress can be rationally 
understood only in the light of its spiritual ground. 
The last and highest stage of the world-series is 
that of Psychic nature, in which soul becomes the 
protagonist of the drama. In the soul the essence 
of individuality is realized. We have seen how in 
the mechanical sphere the effect of the individualiz- 
ing force of the world-ground appeared in that prin- 
ciple of continuity which bound the separate parts 
into one developing series. Individuality proper, 
however, transcends mechanism both in its essence 
and its form. In the organic series the form of in- 
dividuality lifts its head above the stream and em- 
bodies itself externally in the living body. But 
here it achieves only a temporary and incomi)lete 
triumph over mechanism, by which its grasp is soon 
broken, and its continuity is secured only in a suc- 
cession of perishing organisms. 

The defect of individuality as it embodies itself in 
the life-series consists in its failure to realize a com- 



PSyCIIIC NATUEE 97 

plete circle of return upon self. This, as we have 
seen, is the type of all complete spiritual activity, 
and it is the essence of individualit3^ Now, at the 
point in the world-series where this complete circle 
of activity is first achieved, and the world-energy is 
able to complete the cycle of self-return upon self, 
soul makes its first overt entrance into nature. Soul 
is that com]plete type of individuality which arises 
out of this perfected circle, and its roots are to be 
sought, therefore, not in any form of organism, but 
in the atomic sphere. The category of soul-activity 
is elemental, and must be conceived as arising in 
that sphere of X3rimal forces which antedates all 
forms of organized existence. 

Let us consider the modification which the aj)- 
pearance of this category would introduce into the 
world-series. If we posit the persistence of the 
material atoms or centres of mechanical force, then 
this psychic force will be conceived as arising in 
conjunction with the material atoms as a principle 
of spiritual activity. We will thus arrive at the 
conception of the soul as, in its elemental constitu- 
tion, consisting of a duad or synthesis of material and 
spiritual forces ; and this synthesis will be conceived 
as the primal centre of psychic activity. 

We adopt this form of psychic dualism as a proxi- 
mate conception. Its value consists partly in the 
constitutional basis which it provides for the recog- 
nized dualism of conscious experience,* and partly 



* James: Psyclwlogy, vol. i., chaps, ix. and x. 

7 



98 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

also in the profounder view it opens as to the relation 
between matter and spirit in the sj^here of the sonl- 
life. This connection is so close and interpenetrat- 
ing- as to preclude the common idea that the soul is 
a pure spiritual activity that is unmodified by mat- 
ter, and that it comes into contact with the material 
only in its organized corporeal form. Such a view 
reduces the psyche, in its relation to matter, to the 
position of a mere deus ex machina, capable of influ- 
encing- and of being influenced only in an external 
and artificial way. If the common theory were the 
ti-ue one, then the way in which the categories of the 
material penetrate into the inner circle of con- 
sciousness and determine the forms of perception, 
would be inexplicable. No theory of the connection 
of the material and spiritual will be satisfactory, we 
think, that does not trace it to its roots in the con- 
stitution of the soul itself. 

The statement of psychic dualism above given is 
not to be taken, however, as final. A profounder 
view may be achieved by reflection. Aristotle con- 
ceived the soul to be pure actuality ; but he also con- 
ceived matter to be potence — ^xn/ajj.i<i — and thus 
made no absolute distinction between them. He 
rather conceived a continuity of development from 
matter up to the purest activity of spirit. The view 
advocated here is in its main features almost iden- 
tical with that of Aristotle. We conceive soul in its 
ideal essence to be pure entelechy, or spiritual self- 
activity, but in the form of its real existence it is 
modified by lower grades of activity. By this we 



PSYCHIC NATURE 99 

mean to say that its ideal essence is not all realized 
in activity, but that some of it is mere potence. 
Now, it is the law of potence to be perpetually pass- 
ing- into activity, and in doing- so it passes through 
grades, each of which has its distinctive categories 
and modes of action. Matter is a form of partially 
actualized spiritual potency, and there can be no 
impropriety, therefore, in conceiving it as co-existing- 
in the same individual being with higher forms of 
spiritual activity. 

This is the conception of soul to which we are 
gradually approaching. Nature in her journey up- 
ward to soul passes through the stag-es of mechan- 
ism and life. Now, just as the living- organism com- 
prehends the mechanism by which it is preceded, so 
soul is to be conceived not alone as the end of nat- 
ure's evolution, but also as its epitome. Soul is a 
microcosm, and when we say that it is a synthesis 
of the material and spiritual, or that it unites in its 
constitution both actuality and potence, we mean to 
say that nature in her passage up to soul carries all 
her riches with her, and that in the constitution of 
the soul is to be found, therefore, a synthesis of the 
categories and activities of mechanism, life, and spirit. 

Still, the conceptions of the soul as a duad, and as 
an epitome and synthesis of nature's evolution, are 
not completely satisfactory. We will only reach an 
adequate idea of soul by connecting- it with the 
primal ground out of which it springs. The primal 
ground of the world is the self-activity of absolute 
Spirit. This self-activity going out into potentiality, 



100 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

constitutes the proximate and immanent ground of 
the world. Now, if we call this outgo, creation, we 
cannot regard it as a single act once and for all 
accomplished in time, for, as we have seen, time it- 
self originates with this activity. But we must 
rather conceive it to be an eternal process, which has 
neither beginning, interruption, nor end in time. 
In its relation to the time-series, then, we must re- 
gard creation as a continuous process by which the 
world and its activities are kept in being. 

In the light of this we are able to put a new con- 
struction on the idea of the soul reached above. It 
enables us to translate our categories of duality and 
synthesis into more adequate terms, and to conceive 
soul as a self -activity which realizes itself by passing 
through the lower stages represented by mechanism 
and life, in its x^rogress. It will include in its unity, 
therefore, these moments of potency which will con- 
stitute a modification of pure self-activity and at 
the same time make it rationally intelligible how 
the activity of the soul may also include in it the 
loAver categories of the world-series. 

It also grounds the dualism of the psychic nature 
without making any break in its unity. The unitary 
individuality of the soul is its supreme category. 
But included in this there is a synthesis of actuality 
and potency. Out of this synthesis springs a dia- 
lectic which motives the progressive life of the soul. 
For, if we conceive the inner movement of the soul 
to be a ceaseless evolution of self-activity, in the 
course of which the moments of lower activity are 



PSYCHIC NATURE 101 

passed tlirougli and botli compreliended and tran- 
scended, we will be able to conceive tlie outer move- 
ments of experience which we come upon in empiri- 
cal processes, as a dual dialectic between a spiritual 
principle of unitary activity and the lower ma- 
terial and mechanical activities, and also how out of 
this arises the dual form of the soul's life. 

In order to realize this we have only to consider 
the categories which belong' to the different species 
of activity. The mechanical, as we have seen, develop 
the categories of a series which is spatio-temporal 
in its form, while in substance, the parts are bound 
together into a continuous chain of conditions and 
consequents by the mechanical principle of causa- 
tion. The spiritual activity, on the other hand, de- 
veloiDS the closed circle of unitary individuality. 
Now, it is easy to see that if the soul be represented 
as we have rei^resented it above, its manifested ac- 
tivity in experience will be a dual process. The 
mechanical activities will determine its life in the 
form of a series, each part of which will be condi- 
tioned on what precedes it in time. Thus will arise 
the flowing stream of which James speaks, that ob- 
jective empirical self which flows along with the 
world-series and is held fast in the clutches of its con- 
ditions. On the other hand, the spiritual activity 
will be ever realizing itself in a self-centred unitary 
ego or self, the unitary I of the conscious life. And 
this unitary I, which we must regard as the form of 
self-activity, will be ever reaching out and compre- 
hending in its circle the flowing stream of the ob- 



102 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

jective empirical self. The ijrocess is thus dualistic, 
and takes the form of a struggle of the unitary self- 
activity of the soul to overcome and comjarehend the 
emiDirical in its cycle, the result of which is that the 
soul -life can be adequately conceived only as a flow- 
ing temporal stream that is periDetually being taken 
up and transformed into unitary individuality by a 
i:)rinciple of immanent spiritual self -activity. 

By thus immanating mechanism in the soul's con- 
stitution we are able to rationally ground the dual 
process of its experience. Ordinarily the duality of 
experience is traced to the operation of the primal 
tendency of spirit to distinguish between subject 
and object. The objective empirical me of our expe- 
rience is thought to be fully explained by reference 
to this category. But a serious difficulty confronts 
this view. We have seen in earlier chapters that 
the dialectic of absolute spirit which proceeds by 
means of this distinction, expresses itself in an im- 
manent self-contained movement of distinction and 
comprehension. To absolute spirit there can be no 
flowing stream in which its life will seem to be 
embraced, but the flowing stream will itself be com- 
pletely comprehended and made inner in the move- 
ment of self-return upon self, and no dual process 
of experience analogous to that of the soul will 
arise. The idea of soul as pure self-activity is, there- 
fore, inadequate, and we must, in order to ground 
its most characteristic manifestations, take into 
account the modification of self-activity which the 
presence of the Aristotelian category of potence in 



PSYCHIC NATURE 103 

tlie form of meclianism and its categories, introduces. 
The ideal movements of tlie soul's unitary activity 
correspond to the movement of absolute spirit, but 
these are never completely actualized. The ideal 
spiritual self is ever striving- to comprehend the ob- 
jective empirical self within its completed circle. 
But its efforts are perpetually aborted by the resist- 
ance of the stream and its refusal to be completely 
individualized. The resulting- movement of soul- 
activity never realizes the ideal, therefore, but is 
simply an approximation to it under the form of a 
dualistic struggle of the spiritual self-activity to 
overcome the empirical stream and bring- it into 
subordination to its own ideal. 

The relation of the soul-activity to that of life is 
to be somewhat differently conceived. There is a 
sense in which the elemental forces of the world 
may be included under two categories, mechanical 
and spiritual. These embody the two relatively op- 
posing tendencies toward self -exclusion and the serial 
form of activity, and self-inclusion or the activity of 
unitary individuality. The activity of life is simply 
a form of the latter. It represents the first attempt 
of nature to qualify mechanism by the principle of 
individuality. Now, the self -activity of spirit, as it 
manifests itself in soul, is simply a more complete 
expression of the individualizing force. There can 
be no dualism, then, between the activity of life and 
that of the soul. The soul represents a higher and 
more potent embodiment of that spiritual energy 
which is also embodied in life. The soul thus, in one 



104 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

point of view compreliends the life-energy in its own 
actiyifcy, wliile in another sense it presupposes it as 
its own condition. It is necessary in the order of 
evolution that living org-anisms should appear, and 
that they should reach their climax of development 
before soul can emerge. And inasmuch as life, 
apart from the mechanical forces and elements which 
it subordinates, can be conceived only as an indi- 
vidualizing function of an immanent spiritual prin- 
ciple, it is clear that soul is only a more advanced 
and perfect function of this same principle. Soul, 
then, in so far as it is a later comer in the world- 
series than life, must depend on the living organ- 
ism as a necessary condition of its birth and devel- 
opment. But in so far as it is a higher embodiment 
of the same spiritual force, it will comprehend life 
within itself, and will therefore become the living 
principle in any organism in which it emerges. 

Soul is thus a higher manifestation of life. It is 
life which completes its own circle and returns upon 
itself. It is, therefore, identical Avith the activity of 
spirit. It becomes the indwelling unitary principle 
in the organism by which it is transformed into a 
true individual. We do not conceive, then, that there 
are two principles of unity in a living organism that 
also possesses soul ; but we conceive that the living 
principle has developed into soul and thus realized 
a higher form of life. There may be, and doubtless 
are, living organisms without souls. We can 
scarcely think that the life of an oak or a tulip is 
worthy of being dignified with the name of soul. 



PSYCHIC NATURE 105 

But we can see no reason to think otherwise than 
that the ground of that unitary force which deter- 
mines the individual existence of the oak or tulip, is 
the same spiritual principle or potency that mani- 
fests itself also in the energy we call soul. The uni- 
tary life-principle, wherever it manifests itself, and 
in its lowest as well as its highest forms, is a fore- 
runner of soul, and contains in it the promise and 
potency of soul-life. We do not identify life and 
soul, therefore, but we conceive soul to be a species 
of life, the highest form that it is capable of achiev- 
ing in a relative and imperfect sphere. 

How then shall we conceive the stages and develop- 
ment of soul -life 1 Soul originates in an organism, 
and belongs, therefore, to the biological scale. We 
may represent it, with Aristotle, as passing through 
the stages of vegetable, animal, and human. The 
lowest form of biological individuality is represented 
in the life of the plant. Here the organism is wholly 
unconscious of the unitary force that is working in 
it, and the life-principle may be regarded as trans- 
cendent and super-imposed on the mechanical 
forces and elements. In the animal the unitary 
principle becomes more immanent. The organism 
begins to feel its unity in an organ we call sensation, 
and upon this self-feeling the mental life of the ani- 
mal grows up. But in the animal soul the circle of 
individuality is not fully achieved. Although the 
animal lifts its head above the natural stream in the 
function of self -feeling, yet it is not able to achieve 
its complete selfhood through self-distinction from 



106 BASAL COlSrCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

the stream. According- to tlie figure of the ancient 
thinker, it is half out of the slime and half im- 
prisoned in it. The complete deliverance of the 
psyche is effected only in man, through an additional 
function ; namely, that of self -conception or ideation. 
True iDsychic individuality is achieved when in ad- 
dition to the feeling of self which the animal has, 
the soul ideates itself and distinguishes itself from 
the stream in which it has hitherto been merged. 
In man, therefore, the circle of spiritual self-activity 
is first completed, and a true soul having the basis 
of a rational and ideal life, begins to exist. 

Now, as the history of the soul is thus bound up 
in the history of the biological series, it is reason- 
able to suppose that the laws of biological evolution 
will also be lavfs of psychic evolution. We have 
seen that, apart from its spiritual ground, life is in- 
conceivable, and that its development must therefore 
rest directly on the presupposition of the spiritual 
ground. The same qualification applies to the 
question of psychic evolution. That the soul could 
be evolved, as naturalistic evolution supposes it to 
have been evolved, out of mechanical and unspirit- 
ualistic conditions, is unthinkable. Soul is a real- 
ization of spiritual potency, and cannot be conceived 
as having any other ground. Admitting' this pre- 
supioosition, however, there can be no adequate 
grounds for excepting the soul from the conditions 
and laws of biological evolution in general. We 
have seen how the soul is to be conceived as coming 
into being at the end of a series of progressive 



PSYCHIC NATUKE 107 

manifestations of the life-principle, including- tlie 
vegetable and animal kingdoms, and culminating- 
in tlie man. This is not to say that the soul of 
the animal develops out of that of the vegetable, 
and the soul of man out of that of the animal ; but 
rather that, loresupposing a spiritual principle as 
the ground of the world, the life-principle in the 
vegetable, and the souls of animals and man, may be 
regarded as its successive and progressive mani- 
festations. The progress will thus manifest the 
phenomenon of continuous development. 

The rise of the jDsyche will, therefore, be connected 
with the processes, and conditioned by the laws, of 
biological evolution. It may also be connected, we 
think, with the biological modes of proi3agation and 
inheritance. We have represented self-propagation 
as primarily a spiritual function, although it may 
require corporeal organs for its realization. The 
living principle in an organism projects its self- 
potential or germ as the nucleus of another organism 
of the same species, and thus the succession is main- 
tained. There is no valid reason for supposing that, 
when the form of the life-principle which we call soul 
ajDpears, this function will not continue. Rather we 
may suppose that the soul has the power to project 
its self-potential or germ, and that thus the succes- 
sion of psychic individualities is maintained. The 
germ of the new organism will contain in it, there- 
fore, the potency of the new soul that arises in con- 
nection with it, and psyche will thus be connected 
with psyche as closely as organism with organism. 



108 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

And the soul will tlins come under the biological 
laws of inheritance. "Whatever be the true theory of 
heredity, souls will transmit their essential charac- 
teristics to their psychic successors, and in the 
transmission of spiritual as well as corporeal char- 
acter a solid foundation for race experience and race 
destiny will be laid. 

If it be objected to this view that it identifies soul 
too much with the phenomenal series, and makes it 
too completely a creature of evolution, the answer is 
that this is an aspect of soul-life to which full justice 
must be done. But in connection with the theory, 
the presuppositions on which it is founded must be 
taken into account. One of these presuppositions 
is, that no theory of evolution can be rational that 
does not trace the developing world-series to a 
spiritual principle as its immanent ground. The 
theory of naturalistic evolution is thus ruled out of 
court. Another and deeper presupposition is, that 
the immanent spiritual world-ground itself depends 
directly on a transcendent energy, the creative ac- 
tivity of an absolute spiritual Being. If we dis- 
tinguish, as above indicated, between the historical 
conditions out of which anything arises and its 
ontological grounds, which supply the immediate 
basis of its existence, we will be able to see how the 
historic proposition that the soul belongs to an 
evolving series, and the ontological proposition that 
the soul is the creature of a transcendent creative 
Spirit, may co-exist as mutually complementary 
truths. 



PSYCHIC NATURE 109 

The idea of the psychic nature which we have 
unfolded in this chapter gives rise to several impor- 
tant considerations. One of these has a pedagogi- 
cal interest. A science of pedagogy, in order to be 
adequate, must have two ideas as its basis ; namely, 
first, the idea of self -activity as the central category 
of the soul's life, and, secondly, the idea of a devel- 
opment of the soul's activities and powers. The first 
idea conceives the soul as actuality, the second as 
potence. Now, there is needed, in order that peda- 
gogy may become a real science, such a conception of 
the soul as will make a rational synthesis of the cate- 
gories of self-activity and development possible. 
This need we conceive to be supplied by the theory 
of the soul's constitution unfolded above, and by the 
conception of the dualistic nature of experience 
which it was shown to rationally ground. In the 
light of this theory, it is made clear that the x>roc- 
ess of soul-experience is a perpetual struggle of a 
thinking principle of spiritual individuality to over- 
come and transform an empirical nature that is 
dominated by mechanical categories and laws. It 
also becomes intelligible, that this process should 
give rise to an evolution of the soul's powers which 
follows the order of the development of actuality 
out of potence. This order, as the process of nature 
indicates, is from mechanism up to spirit. The 
stages of mental and moral growth will correspond 
in a rough way to the stages of the natural evolu- 
tion, and both the intellectual and moral life will be 
dominated by corresponding categories. Thus in 



110 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

tlie sphere of moral growtli, wliicli is fundamentally 
tlie development of freedom, the child will be domi- 
nated at first by pure mecha.nical impulses, which 
determine its actions as the mechanical forces de- 
termine the movements of nature. At a later stage, 
the mechanical impulses will be organized under 
some external unitary principle, like that of author- 
ity. The command or wish of the xoarent or teacher 
will be the law which Avill introduce unity into the 
child's life. Later still, conscience, which is a prin- 
ciple of internal unity, will emerge, and with the 
appearence of this principle the child will begin to 
acquire a free standing-ground of its own as a self- 
determining and, therefore, responsible personal 
agent. With the emergence of conscience the plane 
of free moral self-activity is achieved, and the sub- 
sequent education of the child will conserve the de- 
velopment of this principle out of potence into 
realized free self-activity. 

Generalizing the above illustration, we may say 
that all education is, teleologically, a spiritual func- 
tion, and must have as its end the awakening and 
development of the free self-activity of the human 
spirit. This free self-activity exists largely at first 
in a state of potency, and must be developed by a 
process which will lead it from the mechanical up 
to the spiritual. In the stage of mechanism the life 
will be governed by corresponding categories. At 
first isolated facts will dominate the budding con- 
sciousness, and these will be related in the most 
naive fashion to their most obvious and customary 



PSYCHIC NATURE 111 

antecedents in time. The conceptions of tlie child 
will be passively determined by a species of natural 
photography, and its whole mental activity will be 
largely a reflex of the nature that environs it. But 
through the mechanical discipline of this period the 
spiritual potence is gradually struggling into activ- 
ity. The next important step in its development 
will be the emergency of a category that will enable 
it to lift itself partially out of the stream in which it 
has been engulfed and to impose upon it a prin- 
ciple of quasi-individuality. This categ'ory is that 
of causation, which constitutes the inner bond of the 
series, and thus functions in the mechanical sphere 
as a latent individualizing function, binding the 
parts each to each in a developing chain. Causation 
begins to dominate the growing intelligence of the 
child as a rational norm, which develops in it the 
historical consciousness and sends it out in a per- 
petual search for the efficient and final antecedents 
of things. In this stage the passive, recipient spirit 
is subordinated to that of an intellectual curiosity, 
which cannot rest in the presentations of its experi- 
ence, but prompts the child everlasting-ly to look 
inquiringly behind the presentation for the condi- 
tions that brought it forth. This period of naive 
rationality, in which the budding si)irit begins to 
assert itself, leads us i^erhaps to the end of the 
period of primary education. 

The great epoch in moral development, as we saw, 
is tliat in which, conscience lifts its head above the 
conscious stream. In the general evolution of the 



113 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

child's intelligence there is a corresponding- epoch, 
when the principle of reflection makes its appear- 
ance. In reflection the spirit completes the circle of 
its self-activity in the return upon itself. Eeflection 
contains in it, therefore, the germ of what we may 
call the ontological consciousness, a consciousness 
that has apprehended the principle of reason in a 
higher form than causation. The historical con- 
sciousness seeks the serial antecedents of things, but 
the consciousness that has achieved the germ of 
ontology asks for the grounds or reasons of the 
series itself. In other words, it only rests satisfied 
when it has apprehended principles in the light of 
which things are self-explanatory. The world is 
self-explanatory if we ground it in a spiritual prin- 
ciple that is sufficient to rationally explain to us the 
existence of the world. 

Now, we conceive that the ground-princiiDle of the 
secondary and higher education is to be found in 
this category of reflective reason in which the self- 
active spirit first achieves a rational standing- 
ground of its own as a free rational and personal 
agent ; and the great business of the secondary and 
higher education will, therefore, be the develop- 
ment of this rational principle out of potence into 
actuality. For it must not be forgotten that, while 
the end of all culture is the quickening of the spirit, 
its pedagogical methods and the instruments it 
uses must adapt themselves to the stages of an 
evolution. And while a common category rests at 
the basis of the secondary and higher education, 



PSYCHIC NATURE 113 

pedagogy only becomes a science when it acts on 
tlie insight, as old as Socrates, that the germ of re- 
flection is at first hidden in a mechanical womb, and 
that it must practise a maieutic art in helping it to 
birth and aiding it in its struggle up to the maturity 
of a fully realized activity. 

Another consideration is that of the connection 
between the empirical and rational branches of 
psychology. We conceive that the real connection 
arises through the idea of the soul. It is impossible, 
we think, to develop a psychology without a soul. 
But if we distinguish, as Bosanquet has done in his 
great work on Logic, between generalization and ex- 
planatory theory, it is possible to allow that the 
work of observation and generalization of psychic 
phenomena may be performed without the presup- 
position of any particular conception of the soul's 
nature. The empirical psychologist may, there- 
fore, content himself with the general postulate of 
some unitary subject of experience as a working 
hypothesis, without troubling himself further as to 
its nature. This attitude will not justify him, how- 
ever, either in denying the soul's existence or the 
importance of determining, so far as possible, its 
nature. 

But when the science passes from the stage of gen- 
eralization to that of explanatory theory, this prob- 
lem of the nature of the soul immediately and neces- 
sarily arises. For explanation, as distinguished 
from generalization, seeks the rationale of things, 
and this, as we have seen, can be found only in some 
8 



114 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

principle tlie presupposition of whida renders the 
l^sycliic sphere self-explanatory. The whole of the 
preceding- discussion goes to show that the only 
self-explanatory principle in psychology is the pre- 
supposition of a soul conceived as a norm of po- 
tential self-activity, and which stands related to 
the psycholog-ical sphere as the unitary and indi- 
vidualizing energy of conscious life and experience. 
In determining this ultimate principle of explana- 
tion, psychology passes from the empirical to the 
rational stage. The connection thus becomes clear, 
and also the light which may be reflected from the 
conclusions of rational psychology into the empiri- 
cal sphere. For we have seen already that a 
rational doctrine of the soul's nature gives a new in- 
sight into the real character of the processes of psy- 
chic experience, and thus supplies important data 
to pedagogical science ; and reflection will make it 
equally apparent that the same fountain will supply 
valuable light to the generalizer of psychic phe- 
nomena. 



VIII 

CONSCIOUSNESS 

In the preceding- discussions consciousness lias 
been used as a datum without analysis. In this 
chapter we shkll examine the posited element in 
order to determine its nature and relation to being. 
Consciousness is an underivable element of the real. 
Naturalistic evolution, which stands committed to 
the x>rinciple of " deriving- everything- from some- 
thing else," is obliged here to fall back on the dis- 
credited hypothesis of spontaneous g-eneration, in 
order to account for the genesis of consciousness 
out of the unconscious. There is no conceivable 
g-round which can produce consciousness, except 
one that is potentially conscious. Now, potence is 
an unreal abstraction if it is not connected with a 
prior actuality. We are thus led to ground con- 
sciousness immediately in the immanent spiritual 
potency of the world, and mediately and ultimately 
in the nature of absolute being-. 

Consciousness has its primal seat in the activity 
of absolute being. That perfect self-activity which 
constitutes the spiritual essence of the Absolute 
must be conceived as a self-conscious activity. 



116 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

This necessity will arise from one of two alternative 
grounds : Eitlier self-conscious activity and the 
self-activity of the Absolute are to be identified, or 
the former is to be regarded as necessarily implied 
in the latter. We are unable to realize the second 
alternative, while recognizing its possibility. The 
former is not only conceivable, but also demon- 
strable, as we have shown in a former chapter ; the 
form of self-consciousness and self-activity is the 
same, a self-return upon self. Their substance is 
also the same ; namely, pure self-activity. Why 
then should they not be identified, and why should 
we not say that absolute being and absolute self- 
conscious activity are one and the same ? 

Josiah Royce finds in absolute Thought the point 
of identity between being and consciousness, and 
this Thought he names logos. With this mode 
of conception, provided logos be used to con- 
strue the thought, we shall have no quarrel. That 
thought is the logical prius of every other form of 
spiritual activity, follows by necessity from the 
logos conception of the self-active spirit. As we 
shall show more at length in subsequent discussions, 
the dialectic which constitutes the inner life and 
movement of spiritual activity rests on a dual in- 
tuition which is a function of intellection. The 
absolute spirit must think itself and its opposite, 
in order that the motives of the generative and 
unifying energies of creation may be aroused. The 
danger in the representation of the Absolute as 
thought is that intellection will be allowed to swal- 



CONSCIOUSlSrESS 117 

low up every other spiritual function ; whereas the 
activities we call will and love, while presupposing 
thought as their logical prius, are not derivative 
from thought. We must rather suppose a synthesis 
of thought and will in the absolute volition, and a 
further synthesis of thought, will, and emotion in 
the absolute love. 

To return, then, to the main line of reflection, we 
conceive it necessary to regard self-conscious activ- 
ity and the self-activity of absolute being as iden- 
tical. Spirit in its actuality will, therefore, always 
be self-conscious, and it will be the nature of a spir- 
itual force, wherever it manifests itself, to become 
conscious also. Now, if we conceive the self-activ- 
ity of the Absolute to be essentially self-conscious, 
it will be necessary, in accordance with the principle 
developed in the second chapter, to conceive that 
the same outgo of this energy into non-being which 
transforms it into spiritual potency, will also change 
its consciousness into potentiality. The immanent 
world-ground, while not actively conscious, therefore, 
will contain in it the potentiality of conscious self- 
activity. 

The progress of the spiritual world-principle up 
to the stage of realized self-activity in the soul of 
man, will also be a process of the evolution of con- 
sciousness. In the first stages of this evolution the 
consciousness in which the world-movement origi- 
nates is one that wholly transcends it ; namely, the 
consciousness of the Absolute. In the stage of 
pure mechanism no consciousness can be posited 



118 BASAL CONCEPTS IIST PHILOSOPHY 

anywhere in the world, except as a latent potenti- 
ality in its ground-principle. And this is probably 
true also of the veg-etable stage of organic nature ; 
for although the plant manifests the form of unitary 
individuality, there is no evidence that this is not 
external to the plant itself, or that it has any pres- 
age, even the vaguest, of its own life. Could the 
negative of this be established, it would then be 
reasonable to suppose that consciousness in some 
form is coextensive with life. 

So far as we know, consciousness manifests itself 
in the world-series, for the first time, in the animal 
organism. It appears here in the form of feeling 
without ideality, and the animal intelligence is 
therefore rudimentary. But up to its limit it seems 
to realize a type that is common to it and the intel- 
ligence of man. If the animal consciousness differs, 
not simply in degree, but also in kind, from the 
human, the rationale of the differential marks must 
be sought, we think, not in an original distinction of 
type, but in the various degrees of development of a 
common type. If we suppose the world to spring 
out of a spiritual ground-principle, and its stages to 
represent the development of this principle from 
potence into actuality, it follows that the first mani- 
festations of consciousness will be in a rudimental 
form, and that more adequate manifestations of the 
same spiritual type will appear later on in the 
series. Now, this rudimental form that we call ani- 
mal intelligence is a manifestation of consciousness 
as feeling without ideality. Such a consciousness is 



COTSTSCIOUSlSrESS 119 

capable of feeling or dimly appreliending- itself and 
its environment, but it is unable to conceive itself or 
the environment, and cannot, therefore, make any 
intellectual distinction between itself and the world- 
stream in which it is merged. Now, this category of 
feeling without ideality, or, at least, in which ideal- 
ity remains latent and potential, is the one under 
which the evolution of animal consciousness pro- 
ceeds. There are gradations of animal intelligence 
from a lowest stage of simplest reaction upon stim- 
ulus, up to a stage which seems to differ little from 
the lowest L^anifestations of human intelligence. 
That these are gradations in the scale of a feeling 
consciousness that has not yet achieved ideality, is 
rendered intelligible by analysis. Feeling in com- 
parison with ideality is relatively passive, and the 
supreme principle of its development will be associ- 
ation. For, until a consciousness has achieved a 
power of reflection which is a true function of self- 
activity, its processes must be relatively passive 
and, therefore, associative. 

Now, analysis has reduced the principles of asso- 
ciation to two, namely, contiguity and similarity, 
the former being relatively the more passive, while 
the latter represents a more active form of mentality 
and immediately underlies the ratiocinative func- 
tions proper. James, in Chapter XXII. of his " Psy- 
chology," takes the ground, and seeks to prove it 
by numerous illustrations, that the point of differ- 
ence between the animal mind and the human is the 
absence from the former of the principle of associ- 



120 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

ation by similarity. All cases of animal reasoning 
in which similarity seems to be present, are resolv- 
able, he thinks, into cases of contiguity. It is 
possible that this may be true, but the distinction 
seems strained, and we conceive a more natural ex- 
planation of the diiference to be possible. For if we 
recognize the existence of a rudimental form of con- 
sciousness in which ideality or the principle of re- 
flection is yet latent, it becomes possible for us to 
enlarge the scope of this consciousness in another 
direction, and to conceive it as capable of feeling 
the similarities and distinctions of things as well as 
their mere contiguities in time and space. For ex- 
ample, when a dog recognizes his master's footsteps 
or distinguishes them among the footsteps of 
strangers, he may feel the similarities and differences 
on which his recognition depends, without intellect- 
ually apprehending them at all. And when we rec- 
ognize this extension of the principle of association 
in animals, we may also admit a corresponding ex- 
tension in the sphere of what is called the animal 
reason. In the light of the distinction between 
feeling and ideality it is possible to distinguish be- 
tween two species of reasoning; namely, reasoning 
which ends in volition and action, and reasoning 
which ends in a conception or logical conclusion. 
The latter is always reflective, while the former is 
possible without reflection. 

To see how this may be it is only necessary to 
analyze a concrete case. A showman has trained a 
pony to select out of a series of the first seven digits, 



coNSciousisrEss 121 

arranged in order on separate cards, the one that 
represents the day of the week, say Wednesday, on 
which the exhibition is given. He orders the pony 
to go and bring him the number for Wednesday. 
The pony goes as commanded and placing his head 
by the row of figures, seems to hesitate. The show- 
man repeats, " the number for Wednesday ! bring me 
the number for Wednesday." Prompted by some- 
thing in these words, perhaps a peculiar intonation, 
the pony recovers from his hesitation and picks out 
the right card. In order to understand the processes 
involved in this we must connect it with the previous 
course of training, in which each step in the executive 
process has been laboriously associated with some 
word, or gesture, or expression of the trainer. We 
have onlj^ to suppose now that the pony's conscious- 
ness has the power of associating these two series 
and of feeling the connection between their associated 
parts, in order to reach an explanation of his action. 
And we have only to generalize the illustration in 
order to see how, on the presupposition of a feeling 
consciousness and the associative principles of con- 
tiguity and similarity, the ratiocinations of animals 
are explicable without the introduction of ideality. 

In man the form of consciousness is completed by 
the appearance of ideality. The soul of man is, as 
we have seen, a circle of self-activity. The comple- 
tion of this circle makes the function of reflection, 
the return of self upon self, possible, and reflection 
is what we have called ideality, Man's conscious- 
ness is one that not only feels itself and its environ- 



122 BASAL CONCEPTS IIST PHILOSOPHY 

ment, but also conceives these in themselves and in 
their distinction. The human consciousness has the 
power, therefore, of distinguishing- itself from the 
stream in which its life flows. In this power of self- 
conception or reflection we find the ground of that 
distinction between the unitary self and the empiri- 
cal stream of consciousness which rests at the basis 
of the manifested life of man. In the human con- 
sciousness we find also the same principles of as- 
sociation which also function in the animal. But 
there lies coiled up in the human soul, however low 
down in the scale, this principle of ideal reflection 
which on the theoretic side of man's intelligence 
lays the foundations of a distinctive development of 
free intellectual activity ; Avhile on the practical 
side it leads to the emergence of conscience and the 
life of free ethical individuality. Consciousness is 
from the start the potency of both feeling and ideal- 
ity. But in the animal stage of its manifestation 
feeling alone is active, while ideality must be con- 
ceived as existing only as a latent potence. The 
arousal of this potency into the germ of an active 
life marks the beginning- of an intelligence that we 
call human. 

We have represented the activity of the soul as a 
perpetual jjassage from spiritual potence to actual- 
ity. A corresponding representation of conscious- 
ness will express its truth. In the developed con- 
sciousness we find a synthesis of feeling and ideality, 
and this, in view of the nature of the soul of which it 
is the expression, can be conceived oulj^ in terms 



CONSCIOUSNESS 123 

of perpetual movement as a xjassage from potency 
to actuality. We have seen that the soul is an ei3it- 
ome, a microcosm of the world - process through 
which it is realized. It leaves nothing behind, but 
embraces the moments of potency through which 
it has passed on its way to actuality, in the com- 
pleted circle of its life. In like manner, conscious- 
ness epitomizes the stages of its evolution. Man is 
an animal with an animal organism, and his intelli- 
gence includes in it the animal intelligence, as a 
point which he must perpetually X3ass through in 
order to reacla his own standpoint. But this animal 
intelligence is a stage or moment that is perpetually 
being overcome and subordinated, and man only 
reaches the plane of his own true life when he has 
attained to the standpoint of reflective ideality and 
thus become a free intellectual and moral agent. 

Synthesis of the ideas of the psychic nature and 
of consciousness here reached, makes possible an- 
other very important advance in philosophic con- 
ceptions. A self-activity that unites in it the mo- 
ments of feeling and ideality, constitutes a fountain 
out of which spring the intellectual, emotional, and 
volitional elements of man's actual experience. But 
the soul is to be conceived also as in a perpetual 
movement of self -evolution in which it is ever pass- 
ing from potency to actuality. The complete act- 
uality at which it aims is not, therefore, a present 
possession, but an aim that is perpetually being 
achieved. It is an ideal which embodies the true 
nature of the soul, and which is constantly pressing 



124 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

upon tlie spheres of its activity as the true law of its 
being". Thus arises an ideal spring of intellectual, 
moral, and aesthetic elements which stands for the 
soul's true activity, and which embodies itself in 
man's sj^iritual ideals of the True, the Good, and the 
Beautiful. The synthesis reached above gives us 
an insight into the fact that the ideal is no external 
and visionary element in our conscious life, but 
that it is immanent and internal, the true goal tow- 
ard which all normal psychic activity tends. 



IX 

MORALITY 

A metaphysic of morality cannot be developed 
exclusively from the idea of tlie human soul. It 
must go back of this to the primal ground out of 
which the soul has come. The soul is proximately 
the highest entelechy or actualization of the spir- 
itual principle which constitutes the immanent 
ground of the world. But this immanent principle 
is a potence which presupposes a transcendent ac- 
tuality. This actuality is the absolute self-active 
Spirit which energizes as the ultimate ground of 
all things. 

The evolution of soul may be conceived as the 
progressive development of spiritual activity. For 
the soul is a self-active iDrinciple. But it is not 
absolute, nor is the consciousness it develops the 
consciousness of the Absolute. We have seen that 
the Absolute has its own immanent consciousness, 
which is that of a being who is perfect self-activity 
and in whom there is no undeveloped potency. 
There can be no development, then, in the absolute 
consciousness. Now the soul, though it realizes at 
the centre of its being the same category of self- 



126 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

activity, yet this process of realization is an evolu- 
tion or develoi)ment out of potence into actuality, 
in wliicli the potence and its categories are a con- 
tained moment. Actuality in such a nature is an 
ideal which represents its goal, but not its perma- 
nently secured possession. The ideal of the soul is 
thus an absolute life. But this ideal is not realized, 
and in the nature of things never can be. For, as 
we have seen, the soul carries the moment of po- 
tentiality ever with it. Its movement is a perpetual 
struggle up out of the undeveloped potences, a per- 
petual effort to overcome and transform the activities 
of this lower life into the complete self-activities of 
the ideal. Thus arises that dualistic dialectic, which 
James has described in its psychological aspects, 
of the ideal self -activity of the human spirit to over- 
come the empirical self and to absorb it into its own 
unitary individuality. And the same dialectic be- 
comes moral when conscience emerges and the free 
ethical self-activity of the ideal presses upon the 
empirical will, as a consciousness of the higher law 
which its activities are to realize. 

Now, as it is in the ideal ethical activities of 
the soul that the norms of duty are to be sought, so 
it is in this same activity that the soul comes into 
closest relation with the absolute Spirit, its ground. 
The form in which the absolute Spirit realizes it- 
self to itself, we have called logos. Now, the coun- 
terpart of this absolute logos in the psychic sphere 
is the ideal self which stands ever as the unattained 
goal of the soul's activity. We shall name this the 



MOEALITY 127 

Psychic Logos, and shall use the term always in the 
same sense, as a designation for that ideal soul- 
activity which functions as the ever unrealized end 
of an infinite sj)iritual evolution. 

It is through the psychic logos that the norms of 
morality are introduced into the human soul. But 
they have their primal springs in the nature of the 
Absolute. Now, from the theoretic standpoint the 
absolute activity may be conceived as absolute 
Thought. But from the ethical point of view it 
must rather be conceived as absolute Will. Abso- 
lute will is a free self-activity of choice to which 
the motives are all internal. Absolute will, there- 
fore, always and only wills itself. Even when it 
goes out of itself its motive is self-realization in an 
outer, negative sphere. But when we say that ab- 
solute will wills itself, we mean that absolute self- 
activity wills itself, and therefore wills that its 
spiritual content shall be realized. 

The content of anything is the immanent quality 
or character of its activity. Now, the spiritual dia- 
lectic will enable us to realize the ethical content of 
the absolute activity. We must remember that the 
Absolute is identical with completely actualized 
spirit, and that all the highest possibilities are 
realized in it. The absolute Thought, then, in think- 
ing itself will think absolute truth, and this ethi- 
cally conceived is absolute Wisdom. The absolute 
Will in willing itself wills absolute Good, and this 
ethically considered has two aspects : (1) as a norm 
of ethical activity it is the Right, which qualita- 



128 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

tively conceived is Rigliteousness. (2) As a telos 
or end of ethical activity it is the Good, which quali- 
tatively conceived is Goodness. Lastly, the abso- 
lute Love energizes as the absolute Unity, and this 
ethically conceived is absolute Holiness, while ses- 
thetically it is the absolute Beauty. 

As will be more clearly seen hereafter, the three 
modes of the activity of the absolute spirit are sim- 
ply different aspects of its whole or individual life. 
When the Absolute thinks itself, will and love are 
immanent in its thought. When it wills, thought 
and love are immanent in its volition. Now, the 
form of ethical activity is will, and the absolute will 
is a function of the whole absolute individuality. 
The character of the absolute will is its immanent 
content, and this, as we have seen, comprises the 
qualities of wisdom, righteousness, goodness, and 
holiness. The absolute will then, in willing itself, 
wills perfect wisdom, righteousness, goodness, and 
holiness. This immanent content is essential to 
the conception of the absolute will. Otherwise no 
distinction could be made between it and a de- 
moniac will. 

But when we say that morality is intrinsic we do 
not mean to assert that the absolute consciousness 
stands in the same relation to it as does the human. 
A little reflection will show the fallacy of such an 
assertion. We have shown that the human con- 
sciousness is ethically, in a sense, divided against 
itself. Conscience reveals a distinction between an 
actual and an ideal. On the one hand the psychic 



MORALITY 129 

logos mediates to the human consciousness the 
norms of absolute morality which function as ideal 
laws. On the other hand, the empirical self is imper- 
fect and perhaps also depraved by evil, and its will 
falls short of the ideal, or perhaps goes dead against 
it. A dualistic dilemma thus arises out of the natural 
conditions of finite existence and there is war in the 
soul's members between the law of the flesh and 
the law of the spirit. The point we wish to empha- 
size here, however, is the fact that the law of the 
spirit or ideal, imposes itself on the empirical self 
as a transcendent obligation. It feels obliged to 
obey a law that is objective to and above it. Obli- 
gation and the Ought are, therefore, in this trans- 
cendent sense categories of the relative, and can 
have no place in the absolute nature. It is a dual- 
istic nature, one in which an ideal law presses upon 
the actual, that is conscious of morality as trans- 
cendent, and has, therefore, a duty. The Absolute 
has no duty. His activity is the activity of free im- 
manent moral perfection. 

It is through the psychic logos that the norms of 
morality work themselves into the human conscious- 
ness. This does not, however, free them from the 
law of development. We have seen that the psy- 
chic logos itself is subject to this law. There is a 
point in the world-series when the spiritual princi- 
ple in which it is grounded incorporates itself in a 
human soul. This soul is dual from the outset, and 
embodies a dialectic between what it is in realization 
and what it ideally is in the perfect self -activity which 



130 BASAL COlSrCEPTS IIST PHILOSOPHY 

is the goal of its being. This is the ground out of 
which conscience emerges, and conscience reveals 
the struggle as a dialectic between what is and what 
ought to be. The psychic logos in the ethical 
sphere is the seat of an ideal law which functions as 
the standard of duty. 

But the soul in its unity is a developing real, and 
as a moral personality it is subject to the same law. 
The moral consciousness is at first a germinal activ- 
ity. The moral life is largely potential, but it is 
going on to actuality and in every stage of its evo- 
lution there is present in it this sense of a dialectic 
between an actual and an ideal, between what is and 
what ought to be. If it be asked how an ideal can 
be subject to the law of development, the answer is 
that growth is the law of a being that passes from po- 
tentiality into actuality. And when this being be- 
comes conscious ; that is, begins to realize itself to 
itself, the duality of its nature will be revealed to it 
and it will not only be conscious of what it is — a be- 
ing whose self-activity is tangled up in the skein of 
mechanism — but it will have a consciousness of the 
true ideal law of its nature, that of unimioeded self - 
activity which in the moral siDhere is self-determina- 
tion, and this ideal law will press upon it as the true 
principle of its being, a law that it is obliged to re- 
alize. But it is not necessary for an ideal to reveal 
actually a perfect content in order to become a stand- 
ard of duty. The moral law of conscience as it re- 
veals itself is simply a law of trend. It is the recog- 
nition of the fact that perfection is the only true end 



MORALITY 131 

of our being", and that a perfect law — that is, a law 
that commands perfection — ^is the only law that can 
command our nature with unconditional authority. 

Now, it is obvious that the force of such a law 
may be clearly recognized, while at the same time it 
may not be at all clear what content of duty the law 
enjoins. It is in the sphere of content mainly that 
the princix)le of development applies, since man 
must learn through a growing experience and 
through many different channels, what his duty is. 

If it be asked further, how this moral develop- 
ment takes place, we answer by pointing to the 
whole history of humanity. Everything that con- 
tributes to or affects human development also 
affects moral development. The labor of pointing 
out the successive stages of the evolution, the forces 
that are active in it, and the conditions out of which 
it arises, is one that cannot be undertaken here. 
But it is essential that the movement should be in- 
terpreted in the light of its true ontological con- 
ditions. The whole process of evolution springs 
out of a potential spiritual principle which has its 
immediate presupposition in the self - activity of 
absolute Spirit. This spiritual potency, in passing 
gradually into actuality, realizes the stages of a de- 
velopment from mechanism up to spirit. On the 
ethical side of the evolution conscience stands cen- 
tral, for conscience is simply the ethical form of 
the conscious self-activity of spirit. Conscience 
reveals the dualistic dialectic between the realized 
actual and the ideal Ought which conditions and de- 



132 BASAL co:ncepts in philosophy 

termines the form of all moral experience. Moral 
evolution is a movement that iDresupposes this dua- 
listic struggle and the ideal function of conscience. 
Without this it is nugatory, for it is only through 
this condition that man can become a subject of 
moral experience at all. It is conscience or the 
psychic logos as ethical will, imposing its ideal law 
upon the human soul as unconditionally obligatory, 
that supplies the inner motive of ethical evolution. 
And it is conscience, as containing the ideal norms 
of character and conduct, that supplies the teleologi- 
cal force of the movement. Out of the moral dialec- 
tic which arises between what man has achieved and 
the urgent sense of something that he ought to 
achieve sjjrings the spiritual activity through which 
all his moral riches are acquired. 

There is a sense in which the whole dialectic of 
moral jarogress may be represented as the achieve- 
ment of Freedom. Morality is a function of con- 
science, but conscience itself is an ideal will. The 
law of ideal will is free self-determination. Now, we 
have seen how the empiric will only partially reali- 
zes this self-activity. It is in partial bondage to 
mechanical categories. Its life flows along in the 
world-stream and is subject to its law of causal ante- 
cedence. While, then, the form of empiric choice 
is self-determination and, therefore, formal freedom, 
in fact this freedom tends to lapse into a species of 
mechanical determinism. The empirical condition 
of actual choice is character, and character grows 
largely out of serial antecedents. Why, then, is the 



MORALITY 133 

cleterminist not right when he denies freedom and 
asserts the choice of the will to be strictly deter- 
mined ? 

"We answer that the determinist only blunders 
through an inadequate conception of the condi- 
tions of his problem. The freedom he denies is a 
will-o'-the-wisp, and the necessity he asserts has 
little more substantiality. It is true that the empiri- 
cal will belongs to the series in the sense that what a 
man has been helps to determine what he is, and 
that what he is is the immediate antecedent of his 
choice. This is involved in saying that all determi- 
nation is self-determination. What the determinist 
insists on is the fact that the self that determines is 
resolvable into a chain of antecedent selves, and that 
each antecedent self functions in choice to deter- 
mine the self that follows. The determinist im- 
agines that this destroys freedom ; and he is right if 
the idea of the series be an adequate representation 
of the moral situation. But it is not, for we must 
take into account the nature of the soul as a princi- 
ple of spiritual self- activity, and we must identify 
this self-activity with fi'eedom. And in connection 
with this we must exercise our whole insight, and 
realize that conscience is the organ of this self-ac- 
tivity in its ideal form, and that out of the moral 
consciousness arises the intuition of a dialectic be- 
tween the actual which is caught, so to speak, in the 
mechanical toils of the series, and the ideal law of 
self-activity which is revealed and imposed in con- 
science. We must grasp all this in our intuition. 



134 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

and then we will be able to attach a meaning to 
freedom that will bring* it into vital relations with 
mechanism without being submerged by it. For we 
may admit the main contention of determinism ; 
namely, that the choices of the will have as their im- 
mediately determining antecedents a series of em- 
pirical selves, and this will supply one of the essen- 
tial conditions of the moral problem. We have to 
recognize in connection with this, that the essence 
of freedom is self -activity, and that the inner history 
of the soul is an evolution of self-activity out of po- 
tentiality. And in addition to this we have to rec- 
ognize that conscience is the organ of this ideal free 
activity, and that from the standpoint of conscience 
the dualistic basis of moral progress is revealed. 

From these data it will become a^Dparent that 
mechanism is the handmaid of freedom. For free- 
dom as self -activity is the inner motive of the whole 
process. And while the process itself is to be con- 
ceived as serial and as subject, therefore, to the 
laws of mechanical determinism, we are able to see 
that the motive of the process is to be teleologically 
rather than mechanically conceived. The teleologi- 
cal standpoint of morality is that of conscience, 
which is the organ of ideal freedom. And the proc- 
ess of moral experience can only be adequately 
grasped when we conceive it as a dualism in which 
the ideal force of conscience is periDctually operat- 
ing upon the empirical self, which is the immediate 
antecedent of choice, in order to modify it, and 
transform it into harmony with its own law. The 



MORALITY 135 

realization of freedom thus stands as tlie telos of the 
whole moral drama, and moral evolution is seen to 
be but an aspect of the larger evolution of the hu- 
man soul, an unending- process in which the activity 
of mechanism passes into the comjoleter and freer 
activity of the spirit without being thereby sup- 
pressed or destroyed. 

A sense of the dualistic basis of morality constitutes 
the richest vein in the Kantian speculations. But 
Kant fails to realize fully the true character of moral 
dualism, not from any lack of native insight, but 
because he has never achieved adequate ideas of 
being, non-being, and the nature of the soul. "While 
he has a profound intuition, therefore, his failure 
consists in weakness in the sphere of its application. 
Kant draws from his dualistic data an inadequate 
conception of the ultimate sources of morality and 
a defective doctrine of moral freedom. He truly 
conceives that the norms of morality are to be found 
in man's rational and spiritual nature. He, there- 
fore, makes the ideal moral reason of the soul self- 
legislating, and conceives autonomy to be the only 
true principle of morals. So far he reasons well. 
But because he has made a cleft between the moral 
reason and the Absolute, he is forced to regard the 
principle which finds the ultimate springs of moral- 
ity in the nature of the Absolute as heteronomous 
and, therefore, false. The principle of moral auton- 
omy thus becomes abstractly humanistic and irre- 
ligious, and a chasm yawns between morality and 
religion which nothing can bridge over. 



136 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

A more adequate conception of the Absolute and 
of the ideal, rational and spiritual element in man's 
nature would have enabled Kant to escape this fatal 
error, without sacrificing the larinciple of autonomy. 
Had he reached a true conception of the psychic 
logos and its relation to its primal ground in the 
absolute nature, he would have seen that the prin- 
ciple of autonomy is not irreligious, and that when 
it is thoroughly applied it will lead to the subsump- 
tion of the moral idea under the idea of religion. 

Kant also erects upon his dualistic basis an inad- 
equate doctrine of moral freedom. He truly con- 
ceives the empiric will to be subject to natural cau- 
sation, though he does not clearly grasp its form as 
self-determination in a series ; and since all actual 
choice and action belong to the sphere of temporal 
succession, he concludes that freedom has no x)lace 
in a world like ours. Turning now to the sphere of 
the noumenon or ideal, he is able to conceive a nat- 
ure which is not subject to the law of natural causa- 
tion, and had he been able to fully realize this nature 
he would have been in possession of the data for a 
true doctrine. But an unfortunate breach which he 
has already made between the phenomenal and nou- 
menal spheres, renders him impotent. He can 
never reach the intuition of spirit as real, and his 
sphere of noumena remains empty of reality and is 
filled with mere possibility. True, he finds grounds 
of moral necessity for postulating the reality of this 
sphere, but postulation is not intuition, and his post- 
ulate remains a virtual abstraction. The law of 



MORALITY 137 

freedom wliicli he conceives as belonging to this 
sphere is, therefore, of no real effect, and the whole 
case for morality is left virtually in the hands of 
natural causation. 

It is evident that had Kant conceived true ideas of 
the Absolute and of the psychic nature of man, his 
fine dualistic intuition would have led him to more 
adequate results. He would have seen the vital 
connection between morality and religion, and the 
true idea of freedom would have been opened to 
him. For he would have seen clearly that the recog- 
nition of natural causation as a princi]3le of self- 
determination in the empirical series is consistent 
with a true doctrine of freedom. Conscience would 
have revealed to him the real nature of freedom as 
an ideal self-activity of the soul, which is ever oper- 
ating upon and through the empiric will toward its 
own self-realization. Freedom is, therefore, the in- 
ner essence of the empirical process, and the tele- 
ologic law of moral achievement, without which 
morality would lose all its meaning and value. 



X 

NON-BEING AND EVIL 

The practical working- out of moral experience, 
and especially the fortunes of the struggle of the 
spirit to transform the empirical will, is profoundly 
affected by the presence of evil in the world. Evil 
is a factor that has been variously treated in our 
modern thinking. It has been identified with be- 
ing as positive principle, while good has been con- 
ceived as negative in its character, and pessimism 
has been the resulting theory. Again, it has been 
identified with non-being and non-being with rela- 
tivity, and a theosophic mysticism has emerged 
whose ideal is the breaking of the mould of psychic 
existence and absorption into Nirvana. Lastly, 
evil has been identified with non-being, and non- 
being with unreality, and optimism has emerged 
with its denial of the reality of evil, and its blind 
adherence to the dogma that the actual and the ideal 
are one, or that whatever is is right. 

Now, in order to treat the joroblem of evil with 
true insight, we must approach it from the stand- 
point of the fundamental categories, being, non- 
being, and becoming. For the most serious defects 



NOlSr-BEING AND EVIL 139 

of theories of evil have sprung as a rule either from 
an oversight of some of these categories, or from a 
confused identification of evil with some of them. 
In view of this we lay down the proposition that evil 
cannot be truly theorized except in the light of the 
trinal categories of reality, and also that it cannot 
be identified with either being, non-being, or becom- 
ing, although it has its roots in non-being. 

The typical pessimist of modern philosophy is 
Schoijenhauer. But the roots of his pessimism are 
to be sought in the depths of his metaphysics. 
Schopenhauer denies the rationality of the world, 
conceiving it to be the product of the blind and un- 
reasoning impulse of a will which strives wholly 
without intelligence. The reason and intelligence of 
the world do not spring from its ground-principle, 
but are an afterthought, a by-product of blindly 
groping instinct. The rationality and intelligibility 
of the world are, therefore, appearance and not 
reality. The only realities are unreason, caprice, 
chaos, and mal-adaptation. Now, the metaphysical 
doctrine of the blindness and irrationality of the 
world, when carried into the ethical sphere, becomes 
the ground-principle of pessimism. The Schopen- 
hauerian pessimism does not follow logically from 
the identification of the world-ground with will, but 
rather from the disjunction of will from intelligence 
and the identification of will with non-intelligent 
instinct. Pessimism does not deny that there are 
reason and order in the world, but these are late 
comers, and they find that unreason and caprice 



140 BASAL CONCEPTS IIST PHILOSOPHY 

have been beforehand with them, and have sat, as it 
were, as the privy councillors of the Creator. The 
world is conceived as springing out of an irrational 
and chaotic root. Its tendency to mal-adaptation, 
to the production of misery instead of happiness, 
caprice instead of reason, chaos instead of law, con- 
fusion instead of order, disease and poverty instead 
of health and riches, is, therefore, constitutional, 
chronic, and incurable. 

Now, after Schopenhauer it is no longer possible 
to rest in the easy-going optimism of Leibnitz and 
the eighteenth century. Schopenhauer has opened 
our eyes to the fact that evil is a real and very se- 
rious factor in the world. We can no longer ignore 
the existence of evil or treat it as a phase of good in 
the making. Evil is not good in the making, but 
always and everywhere the opposite and foe of 
good. But there is a root of illusion in Schopen- 
hauer. We have seen that the universe becomes 
intelligible only when we undo the disjunction of 
will and intelligence and conceive the first impulse 
of being to be intelligent and rational. This is 
what Schopenhauer denies, but his denial carries 
him too far. In order that the philosophy of Scho- 
penhauer may be rational the intelligence of Scho- 
penhauer himself must be rational. The world, 
then must in Schopenhauer have achieved a stage 
of rationality and order. Schopenhauer says that 
this is a by-product, and has no more right against 
the nature of things than any other epi-phenomenon. 
Well, if that be true, the standpoint of reason and 



ISrON-BEING AND EVIL 141 

intelligence has no more riglit, claim, or value than 
any other. It is a passing- phase of existence like 
the rest, and why should the clay cry out against the 
potter ? In short, the logic of Schopenhauer's po- 
sition leaves no ground or motive for the impressive 
moral which Schojjenhauer draws and which alone 
clothes pessimism with the dignity of a serious 
theory. The root of illusion in Schopenhauer is 
his identification of being and evil. This reduces 
rationality and good to negativity. If being and 
evil are one and good, and rationality be negative, 
then the irresistible and inevitable tendency of the 
"universe is toward the generation of caprice, un- 
reason, and chaos, and against that of reason and 
order. It, therefore, swallows up all standpoints, in- 
cluding that of Schopenhauer, and leaves no ground 
for any theory of things whatsoever. For a little 
man to sit in his study and write, and seriously be- 
lieve, that caprice and unreason constitute the es- 
sence of things thus involves a self-contradiction 
that is little less than ludicrous. 

The typical optimist of modern philosoiDhy is 
Leibnitz. The roots of his optimism are to be 
sought in the metaphysical theory on which it 
rests. Leibnitz distinguishes three species of evil 
— metaphysical, natural, and moral. Metaphysical 
evil he identifies with imperfection, thus commit- 
ting himself unwittingly to the contradictory posi- 
tion that all relativity and becoming are evil. Leib- 
nitz did not mean this, but he falls unwittingly into 
the mistake because he has overlooked the real 



142 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

metapliysical ground of evil. Or rather, lie traces 
it wrongly to the will of the Creator, who after re- 
volving an infinite number of world-patterns, some 
of which, Leibnitz lets us think, Avere perfect, chose 
the present imperfect pattern as the best practi- 
cable scheme. Leibnitz was sharp-witted enough 
to see that his reference of the imperfection of 
the world to the option of the Creator committed 
him logically and ethically to a conceiDtion of evil 
which would deprive it of all serious reality. Other- 
wise the goodness of the Creator would be im- 
pugned. He therefore conceives evil in both a neg- 
ative and an unreal sense, as mere defect of good, as 
good in the making. Leibnitz shows little signs of 
any intuition of the fact that evil is the opposite and 
foe of the good, that it is that which the good must 
forever suppress and annul. Identifying evil thus 
with the unreal, Leibnitz is utterly blind to the grav- 
ity of its nature and to the serious issues in life and 
destiny to which it gives rise. Like the typical 
optimist that he is, he confounds and even identifies 
the actual and the ideal. For though he is not the 
author of the dictum that whatever is is right, the 
spirit of his general view is in sympathy with such a 
sentiment. Leibnitz recognizes evil, it is true, but 
his recognition is a kind of lip-service, for he cannot 
for the life of him see that there is anything serious- 
ly wrong with the world. Evil to Leibnitz is merely 
a kind of a disciplinary agent, which an optimist 
Deity employs to train his creatures and lead them 
to hig'her stages of good. 



F0T7-BEING AND EVIL 143 

Well, the pedagogical aspects of the question 
should not be overlooked. But it is a shallow view 
of evil that would seat it in the chair of a Divinity 
School as a teacher of morals. The truth of the 
matter is that Leibnitz has missed almost the entire 
philosophy of evil. It is of no avail to recognize 
good as positive and identical with being, and evil 
as negative, if we do not also conceive evil as the 
opposite of good, and therefore real. If evil can 
pass into the good, or if it is good in the making or 
a pedagogical condition of good merely, then it has 
no reality, but is an appearance, and optimism of 
the most roseate hue is the true theory. But the 
whole rationality of a philosophic theory rests pri- 
marily in its insistence on the cardinal position that 
real opposites cannot pass into one another, but 
deny and annul one another. Evil is opposed to 
good, and must be suppressed and annulled in order 
that good may be realized. 

But Leibnitz lacked the philosophic basis from 
which an intuition of the true relation of opposites 
becomes possible. Leibnitz had an intuition of be- 
ing, but none of non-being. We must trace the rela- 
tion of opposites back into the very root of spiritual 
activity itself. There we will see that the primal 
impulse of being which leads to the intuition and 
conscious assertion of self, leads also by a necessary 
dualism to an intuition and denial of being's op- 
posite, or non-being. We must realize how the 
intuition of this negative or non-being supplies the 
rational motive for a disjunction of the energy of 



144 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

being and a distinction between immanent self-reali- 
zation and the outgoing energy of voluntary creation. 
We must realize how the outgo of creative energy 
into this sphere of negation, in order to annul it by 
the generation of forms of being, in the very neces- 
sities of the case generates only the relative and 
imperfect, not the absolute and perfect. We must 
realize that this imperfection and relativity has its 
root in the absence from the creature of the ground 
and principle of its own existence. The law of the 
creature is, therefore, that of dependence on other, 
the self-existent principle on which its own exist- 
ence depends, transcending it. We must finally 
realize that this lack of self-existent ground and 
consequent dependence on other which is the very 
essence of generated being, is the negative ground 
of that differentia of the creature ; namely, its muta- 
hility, which, as Augustine profoundly saw, is the 
root of the possibility of evil. 

From this view it becomes evident that a distinc- 
tion must be recognized between imperfection and 
evil. We must deny that what Leibnitz calls meta- 
physical evil is evil at all. No relative being can 
exist without imperfection. If then imperfection is 
evil, the relative is evil, and we are led by a short-cut 
from optimism to the Hindu form of pessimism. 
For it is the tendency of Hindu thinking to identify 
all true being with the Absolute, and to carry the 
idea of the unity of this being so far as to virtually 
cut off all possible participation of the relative in 
being. The result is that the two poles of Hindu 



NON-BEING AND EVIL 145 

thinking are, on tlie one hand an unapproachable 
One which is the sum of all reality, and on the other 
a sphere of plurality and change which is pure illu- 
sion. This is the world of relativity and becoming, 
which the oriental mind reduces to illusion and 
evil, a defective veil of Make which must be pene- 
trated in order that true being may be realized. 
The good consists in the soul's rifting this veil of 
illusion and losing itself in Nirvana or the absolute 
One. 

It is a curiously ironical fact that we find one of 
the keenest of modern thinkers thus resting opti- 
mism upon a plank which had ages before been ap- 
proioriated by one of the extremest forms of pes- 
simism. The defect in the r)osition, whether subsi- 
dized in the interests of pessimism or optimism, is 
its virtual identification of relativity and evil. This 
renders the conclusion inevitable that the Creator 
is the immediate and intentional author of evil ; a 
thought from which the human reason shrinks, and 
in order to escape the issue chooses rather to bury 
itself in pantheism or atheism, or, if it still clings to 
theism, to vindicate the Creator by espousing a 
theory of evil which identifies it substantially with 
good. 

The difficulty is overcome when we make a dis- 
tinction between imperfection and evil. The law of 
a created being is development, and a developing 
being must be imperfect. But an imperfect being 
may be developing along a true curve toward the 
realization of its ideal end. Imperfection in such 
10 



146 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

a being- will be insex)arable from undeveloped po- 
tence. But normally tliis potence will go on to re- 
alize itself, and in doing so the creature is achieving 
the true end of its being. There are then normal 
types of relative and generated being which must be 
conceived as good. In a system of relative being, 
therefore, if evil arise it must arise as something 
abnormal, as some kind of aberration or departure 
from the normal types of relativity. 

We cannot, then, identify evil with any of the 
three categories being, non-being, or becoming. And 
that means that evil is not necessary as an element 
in any system of reality. The question then arises, 
Avhat is evil ? Well, when Leibnitz identified meta- 
physical evil with imperfection he simply mistook 
the contingency or the liability to evil for evil it- 
self. We cannot do better here than fall back on the 
intuition of St. Augustine. The creature is imper- 
fect, and this imperfection, which, as we saw, has its 
source in the non-self-existence of the creature and 
its dependence on other, expresses itself in " a cer- 
tain mutability " through which the creature is sub- 
ject to conting'enc3^ Now, it is this mutability or 
contingency in the creative nature that is the nega- 
tive ground of its fall into evil. Mutability is not 
in itself evil, for a thing may be, as Augustine says, 
mutable and yet good. Mutability is inseparable 
from undeveloped potency, and the capacity for 
growth and development is inseparable from con- 
tingency or liability to evil. 

In what sense, then, is the mutability of the rela- 



NON-BEIlSrG ATfD EVIL 147 

tive the condition of the origin and existence of 
evil ? We must translate mutability into tendency 
to non-being-. The normal, that is, the good type of 
a relative being, is the develoi^ment-type, and its law 
is the law of growth or progress toward the perfec- 
tion of the type. But the negative of the develop- 
ment-type and its law of growth, is imperfection, 
mutability, tendency toward non-being. Now, evil, 
in its most general and unethical sense, arises when 
the tendency to non-being so far prevails over the 
development-type and its law as either to arrest 
growth and initiate the opposite process of decay 
and dissolution, or when the being falls from its nor- 
mal path into a kind of aberration. All relativity 
has in it the contingency of decay or aberration, and 
when this contingency becomes actual, then evil has 
originated and become a feature of reality. 

What Leibnitz calls metax3hysical evil, then, is not 
evil but the negative potentiality of evil ; that is, it 
is that which renders a relative creature liable to 
evil. Evil proper is some property or characteris- 
tic of the relative which has its root in this negative 
ground. All evil may be classed as two species, 
natural and moral. Natural evil in its principle will 
be departure from the normal type and law of de- 
velopment either as a process of decay or as aber- 
ration, and its manifestation throughout nature will 
be disorder, caprice, destructiveness, mal-adapta- 
tion, and in the sentient sphere, pain, disease, pov- 
erty, and death. 

We can only deal intelligently with natural evil 



148 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOrHY 

wlien we distinguish between the x>rinciple of evil 
and its manifestations or effects. The term is popu- 
larly applied to the manifestations such as pain and 
disease. These are undoubtedly evils. But a phi- 
losojDhy of evil must emphasize the principle rather 
than the mere manifestations. Now, it is coming to 
be a recognized doctrine in the psychology of pain, 
for example, that it has its root in some departure 
from the normal type and its law, either in func- 
tional failure of the life processes, or in failure of 
the organism to adapt itself to its conditions. Not 
only does this confirm the theory of evil we are de- 
feuding here, but it also indicates very clearly the 
teleological character of the idea of evil. Evil is 
departure from the good and must have its primal 
significance in its relation to the good. But for a 
developing creature good can only be teleological, 
and it will be expressed in the end or ideal which 
the law of its being is realizing. The good of a 
creature will thus be the whole meaning and ration- 
ale of its existence. It will include its whole posi- 
tive reality. The evil of a creature will be the op- 
XTOsite of this, the negative of the positive content 
of the good, in that it tends to defeat and annul the 
good end. Whatever tends thus in the negative 
teleological direction, produces the manifestation of 
evil in nature and sentient existence — disorder, des- 
tructiveness, lawlessness, pain, disease, and poverty. 
Moral evil arises only as a function of the will of 
an intelligent and personal agent. Moral evil super- 
adds the element of choice to the generic concept 



ISrOlSr-BEING AND EVIL 149 

of evil. Choice or option is thus the differentia 
of moral evil. How then shall moral evil be con- 
ceived ? In the first place it is evident that evil 
must be chosen in order to become moral. Mere 
spontaneous aberration from the good can never rise 
to the gravity of moral evil. But the choice of evil 
implies an option, and this must be an option that 
is teleological and in view of alternatives which 
the dual nature of the agent places before it. This 
is a vital part of the theory, for if the nature of 
the agent were monal it could have only one con- 
stitutional good and the dilemma of choice between 
good and evil could not arise. The Absolute, whose 
nature is conceived to be monal, must also be con- 
ceived as free from temptation. The evil is that to 
which the absolute nature is opposed, and its choice 
is essentially an annulment of evil. But the psy- 
chic nature of the creature is dual, and there is a 
perpetual dialectic between the empirical will of the 
actualized or empirical self and the law of con- 
science or the will of the ideal self. Man's dualis- 
tic nature thus confronts him with an everlasting 
option between the ideal and the end to which the 
empirical will is drawn. 

This is the cardinal moral situation out of which 
the whole drama of good and evil arises. Moral 
evil arises when the empirical will asserts itself 
against the ideal. It thus cuts itself off from the 
spring of its rationality and spirituality, and be- 
comes the organ of capricious impulse and unspir- 
itual and animal propensity. The negative thus 



150 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

gets the upper liand, and the empirical will having 
broken with reason and spirit, yields itself to the 
lawless forces of caprice and passion. The result, if 
the rebellion continues, has been vividly portrayed 
by Plato. The steeds of the lower nature having 
overcome their guide, take the bits in their teeth 
and plunge madly downward with chariot and driver 
toward the abyss. This figure of Plato's symbolizes 
the lawlessness and destructiveness of the emiDiric 
will when it has asserted itself against the ideal, and 
the fall into depravity and moral ruin that inevitably 
follows. 

Again, the negative character of evil comes out 
clearly in its moral form. There is involved, it is 
true, the choice of some end which is conceived to 
be a good. But this does not constitute the act 
morally evil. It becomes moral evil only as it is a 
rebellion against the ideal good which is imposed 
on our nature as a law, and the evil arises out of the 
fact that we voluntarily annul and negate what we 
recognize at the same time we ought to choose as 
our true good. Our choice becomes moral evil 
when it repudiates the higher ideal good and falls 
on a lower supposed good. All moral evil is thus in 
its essence a rebellion against good and the taking* 
of a negative, destructive attitude toward it. 

The most aggravated form of moral evil embodies 
itself in the will that we call satanic. This last stage 
of moral obliquity is finely embodied in Milton's 
Satan, who although a rebel against God and fallen 
into perdition, has still some remains of his former 



NON-BEIlSrG AND EVIL 151 

g-lory in his nature. He does not become a complete 
devil until, after reflection on his defeat and fall, he 
deliberately renounces his allegiance to g-ood and 
chooses evil ; that is, rebellion and warfare against 
God, as his good. Here the xolace of the ideal 
good is deliberately vacated of its true occupants, 
righteousness, goodness, and love, and unrighteous- 
ness, wickedness, and hate are enthroned in their 
stead. The normal relations between good and 
evil are thus completely inverted, and a demoniac 
will holds the i^lace of the ejected ideal. The Spirit 
is thus quenched, which is the unpardonable sin of 
a creature, and the lost soul has before it only the 
abyss and an everlasting downward progress in evil. 
What light does this view of evil throw upon its 
relation to the absolute Author of the world ? It is 
clear that we cannot affirm unqualifiedly either that 
the Creator is, or that he is not, the author of evil. 
We have seen that evil is no necessary part of the 
relative order. But its root, the mutability and 
contingency of the relative, is a necessary feature, 
and this has its presupposition in non-being. The 
Creator does not generate evil, but he generates con- 
ditions which have the contingency of evil in them. 
Why then is the Creator not morally responsible for 
evil ? and how can the system of things in which 
the contingency of evil exists be any longer re- 
garded as good ? It is clear that moral respon- 
sibility could not be escaped if the option of 
creation is between a perfect and immutable, and an 
imperfect and mutable world, both of which are pos- 



152 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PIIILOSOPHr 

sible. If we carry the idea of absolute power to the 
extent of including' this dual possibility in its scope, 
then the actual imperfection and evil of the world 
impugns the goodness of the Creator and leaves no 
distinctive basis for religion. But if the whole 
doctrine of being, non-being, and becoming- as un- 
folded in this treatise be true, then the option sup- 
posed above is a fiction. The very facts that creative 
energy is outgoing and not immanent, and that cre- 
ated being must originate not immanentally, but out 
of the Absolute, in non-being, carry with them the 
necessity that created being should be imperfect 
and mutable. Only the uncreated and self-existent 
Absolute can be loerfect and immutable in its nature. 
The option then which really exists and which con- 
fronts the creative intelligence is a choice between 
non-being and becoming. The creative energy must 
forever remain quiescent in face of the intuition of 
the outer sphere of pure negation, or it must rouse 
itself volitionally to an effort to generate being 
where now pure negation exists. If, now, the option 
is between non-being and no created existence, and 
created existence which shall be imperfect and con- 
tain in it the contingency of evil, the moral situa- 
tion is completely altered. It is better that becom- 
ing or relative and imperfect being should take the 
place of pure negation and non-being. The spirit 
can only assert itself against the negative by letting 
free the creative energy and generating in the sphere 
of its opposite its own image. 

The existence of evil is, therefore, not inconsistent 



NOX-BEING AND EVIL 153 

with the supremacy of good. Tlie development- 
type and law of a relative creature, as we have seen, 
is good. Now, if the contingency of evil is insepar- 
able from this development-type and law, and if this 
contingency results in actual evil in a given sys- 
tem of relativity, it is possible for such evil to exist 
and be real, without thereby vitiating the constitu- 
tion of things. In other words, it is possible that the 
evil of the world is a subordinate feature of reality, 
and that the force and trend of the good tends con- 
tinually to annul and transcend the evil. The possi- 
bility of this will become more clear if we view the 
world from the teleological standpoint in the light 
of that world-idea which to the Absolute includes 
within it the whole world-process. If the world- 
process when comprehended under the world-idea is 
good, then it stands justified, notwithstanding the 
negative feature which has been its inseparable 
accompaniment. It appears then, that the final 
judgment of evil must be teleologic, and that its 
nature will be largely determined by the conception 
we are able to reach of the end and purpose of the 
world. 

It is clear then that neither optimism nor pessi- 
mism supply us with an adequate theory of evil. 
Optimism treats it altogether too lightly, while pes- 
simism sacrifices the good to the evil Moloch. A 
more adequate view than either is meliorism, which 
while recognizing the reality and gravity of evil, 
subordinates it to the good and believes, therefore, 
that the condition of the world is not altogether 



154 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

hopeless, but that improvement is xDossible. The 
meliorist, with a keen intuition of the evils that are 
eating- into the fibres of the world and humanity, will 
yet not lose hope but rather find in these a motive 
for spiritual activity. For although the end and 
supreme category of things is the good, this can be 
attained only through perpetual struggle. We must 
be continually rising above and crucifying our em- 
pirical selves. This is a universal law of progress, 
and in its realization man will find that he must 
not only avail himself of his own most strenuous 
endeavors, but also of the power that transcends 
him. 



XI 

COMMUKAL NATURE 

Lucretius pictures man in his primitive state as a 
naked savage dominated by animal instincts, desti- 
tute of the arts of civilized life, wandering- over the 
earth without shelter, or finding a temporary lodg- 
ing in caves, and subsisting on berries, nuts, and the 
uncooked flesh of animals. He represents him as 
anti-social, engaging in a hand-to-hand struggle 
with his fellows, and making war the chief business 
of his life. Out of this war of antagonistic interests 
sociality gradually emerges ; fire is discovered and 
man becomes the cooking animal ; clothing and 
habitations are invented, speech is developed, and 
man becomes the rational animal and evolves grad- 
ually the varied arts and complex organisms of 
civilized life. 

The Lucretian model has served for a whole 
school of modern publicists, of whom Hobbes is the 
chief, who represent man as being, in a state of 
nature preceding the birth of social order, a purely 
individualistic, anti-social, and warring animal, who 
in pursuit of his own selfish interests is in a state of 
perpetual conflict with his fellow-mortals. These 



156 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

publicists follow Lucretius in representing the 
g-erms of sociality and civic order as springing out 
of these anti-social conditions, and as being, there- 
fore, a kind of artificial and conventional growth 
superinduced upon a soil that is primarily alien to 
them. 

Another school, of which Aristotle is the first and 
greatest exponent, takes an opposite view, represent- 
ing man as by nature a political animal, containing 
in his nature from the start the germs of sociality 
and civic order. The representatives of this school 
do not deny an evolution of sociality and social 
forms. They in fact assert it as a cardinal doctrine 
of their creed. What they do deny is that the 
growth can be regarded as in any sense artificial or 
conventional, or that man ever existed in a state of 
pure antagonistic individualism. They maintain 
that the evolution has as its necessary presupposi- 
tion a rudimental sociality, and that the social life 
and order which arise are normal and natural. 

Now, there is, without doubt, a large measure of 
truth in the Lucretian view. For, aside from the 
question whether or not man, historically, began 
his career as a naked and quarrelsome savage, it 
must be admitted that there are forces in man's 
nature which antagonize the social order and which 
must be overcome, therefore, before the social order 
can be established. If we name such forces indi- 
vidualism, it follows that the grounding of the social 
order will involve a conflict with the individual- 
istic forces, and that the development which ensues 



COMMUNAL NATUKE 157 

will have its inception in a condition of things in 
which the individualistic and antisocial forces dom- 
inate. The primal condition will thus be one that is 
explicitly and overtly a state of warring- individual- 
ities, hostile to social organization. 

What this theory overlooks or ignores, is the pres- 
ence in human nature of implicit but real social in- 
stincts and forces, and this oversight blinds it to 
the real nature of the struggle out of which the 
social order arises, which is not a mere aimless and 
fatalistic onset of individualistic forces, but rather a 
duel between these and their enemy, the developing 
energy of social order. The deeper intuition of the 
school of Aristotle realizes this fact, and while 
admitting the warfare, is able to put a different and 
more rational construction upon it. Recognizing 
the fact that social and civic order grows out of a 
struggle of conflicting forces, they see in this 
struggle the perpetual effort of a unitary principle 
to overcome and transform the forces of division 
and disorder. 

All theories rest on the common presupposition of 
an underlying human nature. Frog nature, or in 
fact the most gifted animal nature, would not serve 
as a basis for the structure that is to be erected upon 
it. Lucretius himself recognizes this in the fact 
that his naked savage dominated by animal instincts, 
is a very different type of animal from lions or tigers, 
who also have their unending warfare, but out of it 
do not obtain the rich result which falls to the 
lot of man. Lucretius and Hobbes in truth assume 



158 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

on the part of tlie human animal, a wealth of capacity 
which belies their contention that his rationality and 
civic and social life have emerged out of conditions 
from which their rudiments were absent. For why, 
under the stress of antagonism, should all this rich 
fruitage come if all the parties to the conflict are 
purely individualistic forces ? The answer will be, 
of course, that man is a creature who is capable of 
learning the lessons of experience, and who, seeing 
that unrestricted antagonism defeats the end he has 
in view, therefore, calls a halt and sets up a tribunal 
for the regulation of his lawless tendencies. 

But this answer contains the very assumption that 
destroys it. A creature that is capable of drawing 
such lessons from experience must already have the. 
germs of rationality in its nature, and in the lull of 
passion it will be the still small voice of reason that 
will be heard speaking of a better way. If we assume 
that man in his original nature is a creature of purely 
selfish and individual passions, then we are logically 
committed to the conclusion that any principle of 
conduct which may arise out of such a soil will be 
selfish and individualistic also. Men Avill, there- 
fore, never rise above selfish individualism. The only 
escape from this conclusion open to the advocate 
of the theory in question, is the old recourse to spon- 
taneous generation, which, to use Hume's phrase, can 
produce anything out of anything. But for that very 
reason it is worthless. 

The truth of the matter is that human nature has 
been slandered and that man is not a purely selfish in- 



COMMUNAL NATURE 159 

dividualist, but lias in his nature a germinating se?ise 
of Justice, which is the root-i3rinciple of altruism and 
social and civic order. Even social philosophers of 
the Aristotelian school have not always ajoprehended 
all the implications of this truth. They have con- 
tented themselves, as a rule, with pointing- to the 
social relations as the soil out of which the social 
institutions have sprung. But they have overlooked 
the fact that the social relations presuppose some- 
thing more ultimate than themselves ; namely, a so- 
cial nature or consciousness out of which they spring. 
Otherwise the organic sexual instinct would not lead 
to the family, nor would there proceed from this the 
g-erms of the community and the state. Underlying 
the question of the social relations is the more fun- 
damental one, as to what kind of creature the bearer 
of such relations must be. 

It is evident that social relations cannot rest on 
the presupposition of a nature endowed only with 
organic instincts and individualistic passions. To 
assert that it could, would be to enter the school of 
Hobbes by the back door. It is necessary, in order 
to ground solidly an adequate politico-social theory, 
to postulate a communal principle or force in man's 
nature as the basis of his social and civic develop- 
ment. Such a principle is found, we think, in the 
idea or sense of justice. 

The old Greek thinkers of the Socratic school mani- 
fested not only a sound instinct but profound in- 
sight in the place they assigned to ^Justice in their 
politico-social speculations. Socrates regards it as 



160 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

fundamental and is constantly seeking- its definition. 
Plato lays it at tlie foundation of his Republic as the 
principle of all communal life. Aristotle gives it a 
central place in his political theory, and defines it as 
a principle of equality in the distribution both of 
awards and possessions, and Aristotle's definition 
has been the basis of modern conceptions of what is 
equitable and rig-ht, as between man and man. 

What is needed, then, is an analysis of the idea of 
justice as the basis of communal consciousness and 
life. The first step in this analysis will be found in 
the fact that the conception of justice as a principle 
of distribution is not its ultimate idea. Underlying- 
distribution must be some criterion or standard, and 
this the definition includes in the term equal. 
Equality is then a simpler idea than Justice. Now, 
equal comes originally from the Greek verb etKw, 
which means primarily to be like, and then to be 
fitting, and then to be right, seemly, or reasonable. 
Justice is from Jus, which means primarily that 
which binds or constrains. In the light of its der- 
ivation, then, justice is the idea of equality with 
the idea of authority attached to it. 

Terms swing loosely on their etymologies, but 
these in general indicate the kind of reflection out 
of which they have arisen. It is clear that the Greek 
root €t/<a) from which equal is derived does not embody 
a primary reflection, but has a presupposition. To 
be like presupposes a standard of likeness and the 
progress of the reflection from likeness to fitness 
and reasonableness indicates what the primary pre- 



COMMUNAL NATURE 161 

supposition is. It is simply the self when it has be- 
come conscious of itself and thus realized its own 
independent unitary individuality. We saw before 
that this is the point where that ethical conscious- 
ness arises which reveals man to himself as a free 
moral and responsible agent. This ethical self is the 
presupposition we are in search of. The reflection 
of €tKw is founded on this primary reflection which 
reveals the self to itself as a free ethical individual. 

Now, the further question presses, why this ethical 
self-reflection should go beyond itself and include 
other individuals. We strike here the root of the 
whole matter. If we revert to the primal category 
of being, that of self-activity, and translate this ac- 
tivity into will, the outcome will be the notion of a 
will that is self-willing. Now, we have seen that 
conscience is to be conceived as such a will. But a 
will that is self-willing, hy virtue of that fact tran- 
scends particularity and hecomes universal. Con- 
science, as we have also seen, is the principle of eth- 
ical individuality, since in it the soul rises to an 
assertion of its free personality. The conclusion 
follows that the conscious activity in which man as- 
serts his own ethical personality, is the activity 
which also asserts itself as universal. True ethical 
personality is therefore universal. 

Kant had an intuition of this truth when he de- 
duced from his conception of the moral will that of 
the universal legislator whose dicta are binding on 
all rational beings. But he did not clearly show 

the connection by pointing out that moral will and 
11 



162 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

universality come to lig-lit in the self-same reflec- 
tion. Had he done this the relation of his moral 
principles to legislation would have been clearer. 

Beturning now to the main line of reflection, we 
see that equality is grounded in this self-assertion 
of the will of a free moral personality as universally 
binding-. Justice adds to this idea that of the moral 
will as a law-giver whose commands are, therefore, 
universally binding in the sphere of moral person- 
ality. If now we assume that man is the bearer of 
such a principle as this, it will follow that when he 
becomes conscious of the existence of other beings, 
like himself, the principle of justice will assert it- 
self as a law of reciprocity among these beings, and 
each will feel obliged, just in proportion as he 
arrives at a clear conception of the dignity of his 
own person, to recognize and respect a correspond- 
ing dignity in the persons of others. 

It is only necessary to conceive a being endowed 
with the organic instincts and selfish passions which 
the Lucretians picture, as also having in his nature 
the germs of a principle of justice as analyzed 
above, call it sense or instinct or what you will, in 
order to see how such a being, may and will natural- 
ly and normally develop a communal consciousness, 
and out of it the elements of social and civic order. 
For in the inevitable conflicts and antagonisms 
which the exercise of the instincts for self- and race- 
conservation will engender, the sense of justice will 
also enter as a moderating force. And since most 
of the conflicts will arise in connection with the 



COMMUNAL NATURE 163 

share each one is to have of the g-oods and ills of 
life, justice will function as a principle of distribu- 
tion. The sense, however obscure, that the personal- 
ity of your antagonist is as sacred as your own will 
have its influence on your treatment of him, and if 
you have succeeded in wresting- from him the whole 
proceeds of his day's toil, this sense will operate in 
your bosom as an evil conscience and will prompt 
you to make an equitable restitution. 

Now, what we assert is that the existence of the 
germ of this ethical princixale of justice in the nat- 
ure of man is the real iDresupposition of the Aris- 
totelian politico-social theory. It supplies what we 
have seen is the great need, a rational foundation 
for those social relations which the theory postu- 
lates as the basis of social evolution. And it is 
their oversig-ht of this principle, or their positive 
denial of its necessity, that renders the opposing 
theories irrational at this point. In order to ration- 
alize the picture of Lucretius and Hobbes, we must 
endow the naked and militant savage not alone vnth 
organic instincts and selfish passions, but also with 
the germs of a sense of justice. There will be hope 
then, that in the intervals of his heated conflicts vv^ith 
his fellows, the voice of reflection will be heard giv- 
ing him some dim intuition of the fact that his an- 
tagonist is his neighbor, to whom he should give 
the same measure he would hope to have meted out 
to himself. 

How, then, is the principle of justice to be con- 
ceived in its adequacy as the constitutive force of 



164 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

the communal nature ? The elements of our answer 
have already been given. The principle of justice, 
when translated into its most adequate form, is sim- 
ply the universal ethic will. Its norm is to be found 
in the individual conscience, which is the conscious 
will of the ethical personality in man's nature, and 
we have only to conceive conscience as comprehend- 
ing under its unitary principle all individual cen- 
tres of moral activity, in order to reach an adequate 
conception of the nature of justice. Justice is the 
voice of the universal ethic will, and as such is the 
immanent principle of communal activity and life. 

This does not mean that sociality depends exclu- 
sively on the sense of justice among men. Men are 
brought together by the organic instincts, by various 
relations of dependence. No man can live to him- 
self or without the help of his fellows. But all 
these connections are consistent with selfish indi- 
vidualism, and on the assumption that they are the 
only original endowments of man's nature, there is 
nothing in them to render the birth of real altruism 
intelligible. Altruism is not a system of relations, 
but rather a spirit in which relations are viewed. 
Why should not the sense of man's dependence on 
his fellows but tend to foster his selfishness and 
render his egoism more sensitive and exacting ? 
Again, sympathy as well as a sense of a certain com- 
munity of relations are social forces. But sympa- 
thy, wherever it is not the emotional side of justice, 
is a blind feeling which may co-exist with the gross- 
est selfishness, while selfishness is apt to be blind 



COMMUNAL NATURE 165 

to the community of interests, and wlien it does real- 
ize them, subordinates them not to any genuine 
ethical principle, but to maxims of prudence. 

The principle of justice alone supplies the "hold- 
ing- turn " which is necessary to translate all the 
forces and relations we have noted into terms of 
sociality. Under the moulding- influence of justice 
the organic instincts are modified and touched with 
ethical feeling-, while antagonisms are softened and 
conflicts are mediated. In its light the solidarity of 
interests becomes apparent, and conflicting interests, 
where they remain unmediated, are arbitrated before 
a higher tribunal. Under its transforming touch 
sympathy becomes wide-eyed love and regard for 
human kind, while the selfish passions are more and 
more restrained within the bounds of moderation. 
Thus the foundations of social and civic organization 
are laid, and upon these man through his checkered 
exiDcrience is able to build the fabric of his com- 
munal life. 

The principle of justice as the ground of commu- 
nal nature is to be conceived as the communal con- 
science, and therefore as an ideal will. This enables 
us to determine the real form of the dualism that 
underlies the social life of man. The terms are, on 
the one hand, a lolesus of forces which are either anti- 
social and disintegrating, or without ethical import. 
This plexus, when viewed in the abstract as unmodi- 
fied by any other influences, does not tend to lift man 
above the level of egoism. On the other hand, the 
principle of justice functions as an ideal communal 



166 BASAL COlSrCEPTS IlSr PHILOSOPHY 

will, and as a norm of social organization. Man as 
swayed by tlie unethical forces is an egoist, but the 
ethical forces are altruistic and tend to subordinate 
the unethical elements of his nature to altruistic laws. 
If then we conceive the unethical forces as constitut- 
ing- an egoistic will, and the ethical as constituting 
an ideal altruistic will, the communal dialectic may 
be represented as a struggle between the egoistic 
and altruistic wills in which the latter makes per- 
petually for the social life of man. The conflict is 
ever waged on these lines. The egoistic Avill ever 
tending to selfish individualism, while the effort of 
the altruistic will is to subordinate egoism to the 
social and civic order. This dualism is the inner 
motive of social development. Subject to the modi- 
fying influence of the environment, it gives rise to 
existing communal orga,nisms in any given time 
and place. Now, the determining force in such an 
organism is called sovereign. How then shall the 
sovereign power of a community be construed ? We 
may regard the community itself as rising out of 
unethical grounds, and then we will be committed 
to the view of Hobbes ; namely, that sovereignty is 
unethical, and therefore arbitrary. Or we may con- 
ceive the community as grounded in ethical princi- 
ple, and then sovereignty will be affected by moral 
quality. The whole view elaborated above is con- 
sistent only with the latter supposition. We con- 
ceive the community to be an ethical individual 
whose sovereignty embodies itself in a communal 
will. Will is not arbitrary unethical force. But 



COMMUlSrAL NATUEE 167 

where there is will there is also conscience, which, as 
we have seen, is an ideal and universal will that 
imposes its law on the actual. And where there 
is conscience there is a consciousness of right as 
well as a consciousness of responsibility. We do 
not mean to assert that the individual conscience as 
such dominates or should dominate the community. 
But the same ethical norms are active in conscience 
whether it be an organ of the individual or an organ 
of the community. The communal will thus stands 
related to a communal conscience in a way that is 
analogous to the relation of the individual will to 
the individual conscience. The communal will, like 
that of the individual, may act capriciously and arbi- 
trarily. But the relation of the individual will to 
conscience imposes upon it the ideas of right and 
responsibility. In like manner there is a public 
conscience which contains the norms of communal 
right and responsibility. The public conscience like 
the individual is an ideal will founded on the princi- 
ple of justice. It arises through the sphering out 
of the individual conscience into an organ of the 
community. The communal conscience is the con- 
scious recognition of justice as the norm of commu- 
nal right. Thus the idea of Right arises in the 
social sphere. Communal right is simjDly justice, 
regarded as a standard or law of action, and obliga- 
tion in this sphere is the pressure of this ideal stan- 
dard on the will of the community. 

It cannot be said, then, with truth, that the com- 
munal sovereignty is unethical, or, on the contrary, 



168 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

that it is the basis of ethical distinctions. It cannot 
be said that it creates right or justice in the ethical 
sense. It is an inversion of the true order to say 
that any thing is morally right or just because it has 
been ordained by law. It is legally right, of course, 
but that is tautology. The community that utters 
the law rises upon the principle of justice. This is 
the conscience that functions in it, that gives it the 
sense of right and responsibility, and that infuses 
all its energy with ethical quality. 

The community is an ethical individual endowed 
with will and conscience. Like all true individ- 
uality, its life is a j)rocess which is to be construed 
as a dialectic struggle between an actual and an 
ideal. The actual is the plexus of forces and condi- 
tions which determine the actual energizing will of 
the community. The ideal is that sense or principle 
of justice which functions in the communal con- 
science. The progress or evolution of communal 
life arises from the perpetual dialectic between 
these forces, the communal individual uttering its 
will under the pressure of the communal conscience, 
which is ever striving to bring it into harmony with 
its own law. The progressive outcome is the uttered 
life of the community, its body of laws written and 
unwritten, its civil and ecclesiastical organisms, its 
constitutions and forms of government. 

It is only when we view the community as an un- 
folding individual, that we can determine its true 
end or good. The immanent end of individual ac- 
tivity is self-realization. But it is self-realization 



COMMUNAL NATURE 169 

in view of an ideal which imposes the standard of 
the self to be realized. The immanent end thus 
transcends the actual, and through translation into 
the law of the ideal becomes the ideal good and true 
good of the individual activity. We may apply this 
without modification to the community. The im- 
manent end of the communal individual is what it is 
realizing in its progressive life. But the communal 
conscience imposes upon its activity the standard 
and law of ideal justice. The true end thus trans- 
cends the limits of actual self-realization, and takes 
the form of an ideal and teleologic good. The 
good of communal activity is, therefore, the realiza- 
tion of the ideal communal life. What, then, is this 
ideal communal life ? The principle of justice will 
here be our true guide. That principle, as we saw, 
is one that imposes on each individual's will the 
obligation to regard the right and good of every 
other individual as equal to his own. Justice thus 
effects an equation of individual wills, and thereby 
subordinates them to a common, universal standard. 
The idea of the community is that of an organism in 
which individual wills are subordinated to the will 
of the whole, and the ideal community is one in 
whose will the principle of justice is completely 
triumphant. 

We thus reach the idea of an organism in which 
justice is completely dominant, an organism in 
which the universal right comprehends and realizes 
all individual rights. And since this universal right 
thus conserves the true individuality of the members 



170 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

of tlie community in realizing- its own highest self, 
it becomes the highest good of the community. 
For it is an ideal good of the whole in which the 
ideal good of all the parts is contained. The notion 
of such an organism is an ideal that is never com- 
pletely realized. But it functions in every commu- 
nal organization as its conscience, and it is the 
guiding light of all true political philosophy and 
statesmanship. 

The rise of the community is a momentous step 
in the evolution of the free spirit of man. As the 
old Greeks clearly saw, it establishes the conditions 
in which alone man's highest and truest activities 
can be realized. The community is an ethical indi- 
vidual and has its roots in the spiritual principle 
which underlies the world. We have seen hoAV this 
principle embodies itself in the psychic constitu- 
tion of man, and lays the foundation of the evolu- 
tion of free spiritual life. We see here how it 
achieves a further embodiment in a communal life 
of humanity, an embodiment whose ideal is the 
realization of spiritual activity in its hig'hest and 
freest form. It is as an organ of the communal con- 
sciousness and as an intelligent member of a com- 
munal organism that man reaches the highest devel- 
opment possible to him in this world, and in losing 
his life in the common life of humanity finds it 
again in a higher and nobler form. 



xn 

HISTORY 

The idea of commTinal nature mediates that of 
Humanity in that it supplies the sphere in which 
the common life of man is unfolded. The motive 
which leads the individual consciousness to sphere 
out into a universal life is practical, springing from 
the activity of the ideal principle of justice. When 
through ethic principles, however, man has achieved 
the basis of a common life, this gives opportunity, 
as we have seen, for a freer and larger exercise of 
his spiritual activities, and his whole rich nature 
pours the fruits of its energies into the common lap. 
The idea of humanity is that of a common life in 
which the potencies of individual lives are realized. 

This idea may be conceived either statically or 
dynamically, and two branches of humanistic sci- 
ence will thus arise which may be styled respective- 
ly, Anthropostatic and Anthropodynamic. These 
will have the same content, the output of the 
human spirit energizing in the communal sphere ; 
but anthropostatics will treat this output under tlie 
category of work done, as the achieved product of 
the psychic activities ; while anthropodynamics will 



172 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

proceed under the category of active energy to in- 
vestigate tlie processes in and through which the 
results are obtained. 

The idea of anthropostatics is that of culture, a 
term that is used here as identical with civilization, 
and stands for the whole achieved product of man's 
activities in any great age and place. It will include 
Science, Art, Beligion, and Social Organization. 
The idea of anthropodynamics is that of History. 
History is culture conceived in the making, and 
therefore under the categories of force and energy. 
History deals with the common life as a sphere 
of becoming which expresses itself in an evolving 
series. It treats science, art, religion, and the social 
organism, therefore, not as products, but under the 
category of development. The idea of history sug- 
gests its fundamental problems, which are, (1) the 
nature of the historic series, (2) the conditions of his- 
toric progress, and, (3) the laws of historic progress. 

History deals with a series. The life of humanity 
embodies itself in a succession of manifestations. 
This succession is a conditional one. Not only does 
it represent a temporal order, but also a dynamic 
and causal order. If we look at it externally it pre- 
sents the unbroken appearance of a flowing stream. 
When we penetrate deeper we discover that the 
stream is subject to the law of conditions, that each 
phase of its manifestation is traceable to its causal 
antecedents. And when we cast our glance forward 
the phenomenon presented is that of evolution. The 
life of humanity is a procession, a becoming, in 



HISTORY 173 

wliicli every stage is found to rise out of some 
series of conditions that precedes it. 

The most obvious view that we can take of the 
historical movement is, therefore, a mechanical one. 
The categories of the cosmic series may be applied 
without modification to the historic series, and every- 
thing may be conceived as springing out of antece- 
dent conditions by a species of invincible mechanical 
necessity. This view leads, therefore, to a kind of 
fatalism which eliminates freedom from the life of 
humanity, and with it the larger part of its ethical 
significance. History, from this point of view, is 
simply a species of statistic gathering for which a 
strict mathematical calculus is all that is needed in 
order to deduce the past and work out infallible pre- 
dictions for the future. 

Now, fatalism would be true if nothing had been 
overlooked in the inventory. But there has been 
an important oversight. It is true that if we cut the 
plexus of historic tissues transversely at any point, 
we will find that its strands are continuous, and this 
may seem to demonstrate the fatalistic conclusion. 
But it is forgotten or denied that what has been cut 
at the centre is the quivering heart of humanity it- 
self. And this quivering heart is the self-active 
spirit of man himself. If we eliminate the self- 
active human spirit from the problem, we have left 
a corpse and not a living organism. If, however, 
we count the self-active spirit as one of the factors, 
then our evolution is secured, but it has lost its fatal- 
istic aspect ; for a series of manifestations which has 



174 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

at its heart tlie pulsatory movement of a self-active 
spirit, may in the order of its outward manifestation 
obey the law of mechanical necessity, but its inner 
spring- will be a fountain of free activity. 

The question here is not one of fact, but rather of 
interpretation. The fact is a humanistic world- 
series that realizes the phases of an evolution. The 
problem is how this evolution is to be construed ? 
We have seen, in treating- of other aspects of the 
world-series, that evolution is unintelligible and 
irrational, if we do not ground it in a spiritual 
principle. From this point of view, mechanism, 
and in particular mechanical evolution, is to be 
conceived as a form of energizing which presup- 
poses, but does not contain, the self-activity of the 
spiritual principle. To characterize the humanistic 
series as mechanical, would, therefore, be to place it 
on a level with the cosmic series, and to affirm that 
while it presupj)oses, it does not contain, the spir- 
itual principle. 

But such a view is not tenable. We have seen 
how in the psychic stage of the world-evolution, the 
self-activity of spirit enters into the series as its cen- 
tral category, so that the jjhenomena of the psychic 
series are not open to purely mechanical construc- 
tion. Now, the psychic series simply spheres out 
into the humanistic world-series, at the heart of 
which, therefore, functions the spiritual energy of 
the psychic nature. The humanistic world-series is 
no more open, then, to the purely mechanical con- 
struction than is the individual psychic series, for 



HISTORY 175 

it contains in it as its central category the principle 
of spiritual activity. And where there is spiritual 
self-actiA'ity, there also is the principle of free activ- 
ity. Freedom thus enters into the series, and func- 
tions at the heart of the mechanical conditions as a 
force which transcends mechanism and lifts the 
whole historic process above the plane of the purely 
mechanical. 

In order to discover the conditions of historic 
progress it is necessary, first, to realize the problem 
to be solved. This is not iDurely spiritual or purely 
mechanical, but rather mechanico-spiritual. It is 
the problem of the development of a spiritual ac- 
tivity under mechanical categories and conditions. 
The elements to be taken into account will be, (1) 
the historic series itself, which may be analyzed 
into two parts, the inner activity of the spiritual 
principle and the form of mechanism or outer ne- 
cessity which this activity assumes ; (2) the external 
and limiting conditions of the series as a whole. 

Now, the central element of the series which de- 
termines its essential character, is the spiritual 
energy that works at its heart. This spiritual en- 
ergy we have already treated in the chapters on 
Psychic and Communal nature, and have reached 
the conception of it as a self-active principle whose 
movement or dialectic is to be construed as an 
evolution out of potentiality into actuality. It is 
this immanent dialectic which constitutes the inner 
motive of the evolution, and also determines it as 
spiritual in its character. But as we have seen, the 



176 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

order of development in a world of becoming is 
from mechanism to spirit. Spiritual activities must 
manifest themselves in and througli mechanical 
categories and conditions. We thus have the me- 
chanical form of the spiritual manifestation and its 
principle of natural necessity which determines the 
dependence of its parts. 

The first question to be settled is that of the rela- 
tion of the spiritual activity to the form of necessity 
in which it manifests itself. Spiritual activity and 
freedom are identical, as we have seen, and the rec- 
ognition of spiritual activity at the heart of the 
historic series is also the recognition of the princi- 
ple of freedom at its heart. Assuming that human- 
ity holds the principle of free activity in its bosom, 
the question is whether the form of necessity which 
mechanism imposes on its expression leaves man in 
possession of any actual freedom. This seems to 
admit of the following answer. The existence of 
the principle of free activity is at all events left un- 
touched by the conditions of the problem. Man has, 
therefore, a principle of free activity in his nature. 
But the categories and laws of manifestation in this 
world are all mechanical, and the sphere of mani- 
festation is dominated, therefore, by necessity. 
Does this effectually block freedom, or is it possible 
for freedom to overcome necessity ? 

In the chapter on Morality we have already 
pointed out the dualism to which this antinomy 
between freedom and necessity gives rise. From 
the moral point of view, the spiritual dialectic takes 



HISTOEY 177 

the form of a struggle of the spiritual principle to 
overcome mechanical necessity, and bring it into 
harmony with its law of freedom. This is a step 
toward the solution of the present difficulty. We 
have only to ascertain how freedom can overcome 
mechanism in order to make the solution complete. 
Now, we may concede at the outset that freedom 
cannot overcome mechanism by suppressing it. Such 
is not the mode of spiritual progress. But it may 
overcome by transformation. The law of the series 
is mechanical causation ; that is, the determination 
of consequents through antecedent conditions. But 
choice, as we have seen, is self-determination, the 
self which determines being the empirical self. 
Now, if we suppose that this empirical self is the 
term in the series through which mechanical ne- 
cessity maintains its grip on human volition, we 
have only to conceive that free self-activity, in the 
form of conscience or ideal will, is able to modify 
the empirical self in such a way that its determina- 
tions will gradually approximate to the requirements 
of the ideal law. This would mean the triumph 
of freedom over mechanism, not by its suppression, 
but by its transformation, so that while maintaining 
the integrity of its form, it becomes the instrument 
of a free spirit. 

The possibility of subordinating mechanical ne- 
cessity to freedom is the first and most fundamental 
condition of historic progress. To deny this is 
tantamount to denying the possibility of progress. 

The remaining conditions are important, but they 

12 



178 BASAL COlSrCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

are external. Tlie closest of these are tlie biologi- 
cal. The spirit of man animates a corporeal organ- 
ism which modifies and conditions the whole form 
of his existence. The biological series includes the 
psychological and is itself included in the cosmic. 
The cosmic conditions embrace man's whole phys- 
ical environment external to his own organism, 
such as climate, soil, food, habitat. 

The biologic and cosmic conditions are to be in- 
cluded in the plexus of mechanical forces which 
enter into and affect the destiny of man. The vari- 
ous degrees in which this influence is exerted rela- 
tive to the strength of the human spirit, have doubt- 
less much to do in determining race differences and 
the distinctive characteristics of different tribes or 
nations. Now, we may accord to these mechanical 
forces and agencies the full measure of influence 
which the most liberal construction of facts may 
call for, without thereby establishing any valid plea 
for fatalistic necessity. Fatalism rests on the pre- 
suppositions of the pure passivity of the human 
spirit and the absolute inflexibility of mechanical 
conditions. Both presuppositions are false, for, in 
the first place, we have seen that the very idea of 
spirit involves activity of the highest form. The 
soul of man, which is a developing spiritual activity, 
cannot in its nature be a mere sufferer from the 
mechanical forces, but must react upon them and 
modify them as they modify it. In the second 
place, mechanism is not inflexible. It is itself a 
modified function of a spiritual principle and is to 



HISTORY 179 

be conceived, therefore, as liolding" an inner iluency 
within its inflexible outer form. The world-process, 
as we have seen, is an evolution in which an inner 
force passes through mechanism to higher forms of 
activity. The temper of mechanism is, therefore, 
flexible and may be moulded into a variety of 
shapes. 

Without its presup]positions fatalism falls to the 
ground, and the conception of necessity that re- 
mains is one which identifies it with mechanical 
causation or the principle that connects phenomena 
with conditions out of which they arise, and thus 
maintains the continuity of the series. But this 
principle, as we have seen, only limits the freedom 
of spirit in this sense that it determines the form of 
spiritual manifestation. Mechanism and s^^irit are 
not completely antithetic terms. They rather make 
up a complemental dualism which expresses the 
potential and actual, the outer and inner of reality. 

The above conception of the conditions of man's 
life enables us to see how the gradual evolution in 
and throug'h them of a spiritual type of being is 
possible. If the spiritual principle in man is active 
it will react upon the mechanism which environs it, 
and if this mechanism is flexible, then it will be 
modified and the conditions of progress will be 
established. Not only so, but that very larinciple of 
continuity which enables mechanism to impose a 
limit upon spiritual activity is an instrument which 
spirit turns to its own use. For if, through it, mech- 
anism loads its dice and predetermines results, it 



180 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

is always possible tliat the weights may be spir- 
itual and that the outcome may be spiritual advance. 
The only inflexible strand in mechanical causation 
is that which binds every part of the series fast 
to the car of some antecedent. It demands that 
in this antecedent shall be found the determinants 
of what follows. But it gives no insight into the 
nature of these determinants. They may be me- 
chanical agents or they may be a spiritual activity. 
In the psychic series the antecedent of choice is the 
empirical self, that is, the self with all the modifica- 
tions it has inherited and acquired through its own 
experience. But we have seen how this empirical 
self is open to the constant modifying influence of 
an ideal spiritual force which is ever active in the 
human consciousness, and how, upon this activity 
of the ideal the possibility of an approximation of 
the empirical self to the ideal standard is grounded. 

In the psychic series the antecedent is a fluent 
term and may be spiritually modified, and we have 
only to recognize the same essential conditions as 
affecting the life of humanity in order to see how 
the antecedent in the historic series, which is some- 
thing analogous to the empirical self of the psychic 
series, will be always open to the modifying influ- 
ence of that ideal spiritual activity which is ever 
energizing in the conscious experience of man. 
The principle of mechanical continuity may thus be 
made subservient to the development of spiritual 
freedom. 

The great obstacle in the way of recognizing this 



HISTORY 181 

is a false idea of freedom. The only absolute free- 
dom is that of a self-active spirit which has all the 
conditions of its activity within itself. That is to 
say, the only absolutely free being is absolute 
spirit. But man is not absolute spirit. He is a 
creature endowed with a s|3iritual principle, but this 
principle is not in a state of pure actuality, but it is 
rather passing- perjoetuall}^ from potence into actu- 
ality. This determines man as a developing being 
who has a history in time, and whose life is subject 
to mechanical conditions. The freedom of such a 
being cannot be absolute, but must be that which 
is open to a developing creature. At the centre of 
man's nature is a spiritual principle, which is the 
potency of absolute freedom. Its ideal is, therefore, 
absolute freedom, and this ideal is uttered in the 
voice of conscience. But the ideal stands as the 
goal of an infinite progress through mechanical 
conditions which modify the spiritual activity in 
the following manner. 

Choice is self-determination, and if all the condi- 
tions of it were immanent to the self-activity that 
chooses, then absolute freedom would be realized. 
But some of the conditions of man's self-determina- 
tion are external to his self- activity and enter into it, 
therefore, as modifying elements. Now, the empiri- 
cal self that determines in choice is the self-activity 
thus modified. And since it is a modified self that 
determines, it will be a modified self that is deter- 
mined. The form of absolute freedom ; that is, self- 
determination, will be maintained in this activity. 



182 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

but the activity itself will be one tliat is modified by 
external and mechanical conditions. The freedom 
that is realized in such an activity will not be an ab- 
solute freedom, but one that is modified in various 
degrees by the mechanical conditions to which the 
spiritual activity is subject. 

It is clear that the extent to which the mechanical 
conditions are able to modify the spiritual activity 
and bring" it down from the plane of absolute free- 
dom, will depend on the state of development of this 
spiritual activity itself, and that it will vary with 
this development. And here comes in the function 
of the ideal through which the law of perfect free- 
dom is ke^Dt perpetually before the spirit of man, 
quickening it ever into higher stages of activity, and 
thus penetrating and modifying that mass which we 
call the empirical self. The presence of an ideal of 
freedom in the human consciousness as the goal of 
spiritual activity thus makes the achievement of a 
relative and modified freedom possible. For, while 
man has a spiritual principle in his nature which 
sets before him an ideal freedom as the law of his 
being, he is a developing creature and the law of 
his activity must be a law of becoming, that is, a 
law of progress. His relative freedom, the only 
freedom that is open to him, is achieved in an in- 
finite and perpetual progress toward the realization 
of a spiritual ideal. 

It is on the negative side of the problem that we 
hit upon the only real element of fatalism with which 
the destiny of man is affected. So long as we deal 



HISTORY 183 

witli positive principles and forces, we are in the 
spliere of progress, growth, and development. But 
there is a negative side to human life as well as to 
the world in general. We have seen in the chax^ter 
on Non-Being and Evil, that evil is a kind of eccen- 
tricity or aberration which arises out of negative 
grounds. These negative grounds are inevitable to 
creature existence and may be traced to one primal 
root, the absence from the creature of the principle 
of self-existence and its primal dependence, therefore, 
upon another. If we ask for the primal ground of 
the world we are led out of the world to its transcen- 
dent source. This negative quality of the creature 
constitutes its dependence, and out of its dependence 
springs its mutability and liability to aberration. 
It is true that the creative energy expresses itself in 
a spiritual j)otence in the world as the immanent 
principle of its development. But the immediate 
presupposition of this potence is the self-activity of 
absolute Spirit. It would otherwise be an abstrac- 
tion. Now, when we represent this potentiality as 
gradually passing into actuality in the world-series, 
and as finally becoming the norm of conscious spirit- 
ual life in the soul of man, we do not in reality bring 
in a mediatory principle between the Creator and 
the world, but we rather indicate the mode in which 
absolute self-activity can be conceived as becoming 
the creative energy of an imperfect and dependent 
world. The world could not be the immediate phe- 
nomenon of the Absolute without being absolute 
itself. But as the gradual product of absolute 



184 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

energy conceived as going out into the negative 
sphere in the form of spiritual potence, the rise of a 
real world which is yet absolutely dependent on a 
transcendent ground becomes intelligible. 

If now we supiDOse the world-series to become self- 
conscious at any point, as it does in the soul of man, 
we can well understand that its consciousness will 
not be that of the Absolute, but rather a creature con- 
sciousness which, through the same process by which 
it becomes conscious of itself, will also arrive at the 
consciousness of the absolute ground on which it 
depends. Some such reflection as this must have 
been in the mind of Descartes when he affirmed a 
necessary connection between man's idea of himself 
and his idea of God, and further conceived the idea 
of God to be the presupposition of man's self-con- 
sciousness. Descartes must have felt dimly what 
may be apprehended more clearly; namely, that 
what we have called the ideal self in man or the 
psychic logos, is the immediate organ of man's 
intuition or intimation of the Absolute whom his 
spirit calls Father. And since this ideal self con- 
tains the norms of our conceptions of absolute good- 
ness, beauty, and truth, the spontaneous synthesis in 
which our consciousness binds these with the idea 
of God and represents God as the ideal good of 
man, is the true voice of a profound reason. 

To return now from a seeming digression : We 
have said that it is on the negative side of the prob- 
lem that we hit upon the only element of fatalism 
with which the destiny of man is affected. This can 



HISTORY 185 

now be verified. If fatalism enters our world at all, 
it comes in through the door of evil. We have seen 
that evil is aberration, or departure of any creature 
from its normal orbit which represents its good. It 
is only when the creature is in its normal position, 
fulfilling the true law of its being, that the world is 
friendly to it and presents itself as a sphere of order, 
law, and development. If it wanders from its true 
path, the forces which before were propitious be- 
come hostile and do it harm. What was before a 
sphere of order becomes one of cross purposes and 
caprice. To the wandering planet the world is out 
of joint and cosmos has been turned into chaos. 
Evil enters as an active force into the destiny of 
man through the will. The normal choice of the 
human will is the ideal good, and the normal path- 
way of its orbit is toward its realization. This is 
true however we may conceive the ideal good, 
whether as an ideal spiritual self or as God. Evil 
enters into the life of such a being when it departs 
from its true orbit and chooses some other guide than 
the law of conscience which is the law of the ideal, or 
when, in the extreme case, it says to evil " be thou 
my good." The soul that thus chooses has wrenched 
itself from its true orbit and become a wanderer in 
the moral universe. The forces which made for 
good when it was in its true plane, now make for 
evil. The vision of the soul becomes distorted and 
it can no longer see truth or beauty. Its will hav- 
ing lost its ideal guide, yields itself to passion and 
caprice. The stars seem to fight against it, and it 



186 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

gradually sinks into the pit of darkness and " pri- 
mal eldest chaos." 

If we generalize this representation we will reach 
the idea of eyil as a negative factor in human prog- 
ress. The ills of humanity do not all spring from 
normal causes. The worst of them are the fruits of 
an abnormal force. Evil enters the human series 
as a depravity of will, it leads to a degradation of 
character and type. It acts as a disturbing factor, 
creating disorder, strife, warfare and devastation. 
It is the principle of hate instead of love, of chaos 
instead of cosmos, of stagnation instead of healthful 
activity, of dissolution instead of development, of 
death instead of life. 

We have now reached a point from which it is 
possible to obtain a general conception of the con- 
ditions of historic progress. There are two main 
factors in the historic stream, one positive, the 
other negative. The positive factor includes all 
the positive forces, spiritual and mechanical. The 
negative is the force of evil. The positive forces are 
conditions of development and determine the on- 
ward movements of the race. Central among these, 
functions the activity of the human spirit. But this 
spiritual activity, as we saw, is conditioned and modi- 
fied in various modes and degrees by the mechan- 
ical forces which surround and affect it. These forces 
themselves are not, however, inflexible and fatalistic 
in their nature and tendency, but are fluent and flex- 
ible, and while determining the empirical form of 
the spiritual life of humanity, are open to the modi- 



HISTORY 187 

fying- and moulding' influences of spiritual laws. 
The result of the synthesis of the spiritual and me- 
chanical forces is the possibility of a movement of 
spiritual evolution toward an ideal which may be 
characterized as the gradual realization of human 
freedom. 

The great foe to this movement of spiritual evo- 
lution, as we have seen, is evil, which having- its 
negative grounds in non-being", is ever tending tow- 
ard non-being-. Evil enters the humanistic stream 
through the inlet of will. It is a capricious, fatalis- 
tic force, opposing- and destroying the work of the 
positive x)rinciples, and acting ever as a disintegra- 
tive, dissolutive agent. The principle of evil is the 
motive force of disturbance, disorder, anarchy and 
chaos. It is the one irreconcilable foe of freedom, 
the one baleful, demoniac spirit which ever dogs the 
footsteps of life with the shadow of death. 

The laws of historic progress are to be determined 
in view of the nature and conditions of the historic 
series. We do not mean by laws, in this connection, 
the particular forces which enter into the historic 
movement. These are all included in the conditions 
of the movement. By law is here meant mode or 
method, and when we seek the laws of the historic 
movement we are looking for the categories that 
will adequately represent it as a whole. 

Now, it is possible to advance two radically differ- 
ent theories in explanation of the same fact. The 
historic series may be subsumed under either the 
category of mechanical causation or that of self- 



188 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

determining will. Tlie first alternative will give 
rise to the necessarian, and in some cases fatalis- 
tic, theories in which all things are conceived to 
be strictly predetermined by mechanical conditions, 
and no place is left for freedom. The second alter- 
native leads to the denial of necessity and the as- 
cription of everything to a self -determining agent. 
Freedom, therefore, reigns supreme and the ten- 
dency is to ignore the claims of mechanism. 

But we have seen in the preceding analysis that 
no such short and easy methods are possible. The 
fact we have to deal with is two-sided, and its ex- 
planation is one which must in some way effect a 
synthesis of mechanism and freedom. How this is 
to be done may be suggested by the insight we 
have already obtained into the nature and condi- 
tions of the historic series. In the light of all the 
elements that enter into it, the whole significance of 
the historic movement is expressed in the idea of a 
progressive struggle of the human spirit toward the 
realization of ideal freedom. In the progress itself 
consists the actual freedom that is open to a devel- 
oping creature. 

Now, if we confine our attention to the positive 
factors, the fact that presents itself is a dialectic in- 
teraction between spiritual and mechanical forces, in 
which progress is made when the spiritual forces 
are able to dominate and modify the mechanical. If 
we suppose this to be uniformly the case and also 
assume the constancy of the forces, the result will 
be a straight-forward and gradual process of spirit- 



HISTORY 189 

ual evolution. But nowhere does sucli a movement 
appear, and this because neither of our suppositions 
is strictly true. In the history of the race it is not 
true that the spiritual forces have uniformly domi- 
nated, or that the interacting forces have remained 
constant. Given a particular combination of me- 
chanical forces, as for example the environment of 
a particular nation or race, and it may be assumed 
that the operation of these will be fairly uniform. 
But the spiritual forces show a disposition to ebb 
and flow. The human spirit is mysteriously seized 
by some inspiration and the force of its energy 
sweeps everything before it. Again, some paralysis 
seems to fall on the spirit of a people, and there fol- 
low an atrophy of spiritual activities and a lapse to 
a lower stratum of development. 

So our exj)ectation of even-paced jDrogress is dis- 
appointed, and instead we find a dual movement in 
which the fruits of development seem to be ever fall- 
ing into the jaws of dissolution. The truth is, the 
positive forces never act alone, but the whole drama 
has its negative side. There is in the world a ten- 
dency to non-being which makes it necessary for the 
evolution philosopher to couple with his category of 
development that of dissolution. Progress is made 
through the triumph of integrative over disintegra- 
tive forces. But at length equilibrium is reached, 
a period of stagnation ensues, and then the destruc- 
tive forces take the lead in the race and the whole 
labor of the builders is gradually undone. This is 
the picture in the sphere of mechanical forces. 



190 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

Where tlie spiritual forces enter the fact is not al- 
tered, but it requires different interpretation. Upon 
the mechanical dialectic which still goes on is su- 
perimposed a dialectic of spirit. Mechanism affects 
spirit not externally but through spirit itself. All 
the conditions, positive and negative, are translated 
into spiritual effect and become immanent in the 
spiritual struggle. 

Thus arises a law of duality which brings the 
whole movement under the categories of develop- 
ment and dissolution. The forces of growth and 
organization prevail for a time and we have the 
phenomena of human progress, of nations develop- 
ing in power and civilization, of races moving on to 
a splendid destiny. But a time comes when the 
forces of negation which have been held in solution 
assert themselves, paralysis of energy ensues and 
then the sinews of the iDcople's strength begin to 
rot under the corroding influence of vice, their faith 
bows to scepticism, the rich fabrics which they have 
built with the travail of their spirit dissolve and, 
amid the ruins of the once fair tenement of their 
spirit, courage fails and hope sinks into the night 
of despair. 

The world thus seems to be a monster that swal- 
lows up all its own children. The baleful spell of 
evil and negation seems to have destroyed our fair 
vision of a humanit}^ rising gradually into the light 
of freedom and thrown the shadow of fatalism over 
the whole scene. This would be the logical conclu- 
sion were not a higher interpretation of the human 



HISTORY 191 

story possible, which enables us to see lig'ht throug-li 
the darkness and to bind again the broken threads 
of continuity. 

The true method of history can be best appre- 
hended, we think, by conceiving the origin in in- 
dividual form, of reservoirs of stored-up spiritual 
energy which stand at the beginning of each new 
epoch. We may represent a new increment of con- 
scious spiritual force as being generated in these 
reservoirs and as suj^iDlying the living inspiration 
of a new culture. The new movement may be local, 
national, or racial ; its history will be that of the 
struggle of a new ideal, partial as it ordinarily is, to 
transform the empirical conditions in which it en- 
ergizes, into new and higher forms. The struggle 
will under normal conditions be successful until the 
potential of the primal inspiration has been ex- 
hausted. Then the forces of the negative will begin 
to dominate and a movement will set in toward dis- 
solution and death. 

Now, there is no natural reason why the movement 
of decay should not end in dissolution and bring 
historic evolution to a close. And this would in- 
evitably happen, we think, did not the historic in- 
dividual or group, in which the new order is ini- 
tiated, bear a peculiar relation to the old. The rise 
of prophets of new dispensations is coincident with 
the deep decline of the old. When the destructive 
forces are most rampant and the spiritual world in 
which man has lived crumbles about his ears, hope 
is crushed and the spiritual consciousness is thrown 



193 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

back violently upon itself. It is tliis violent back- 
flow of spiritual reaction that precedes new incarna- 
tions of organizing- force and the incoming of a new 
and higher ideal in the consciousness of some his- 
toric individual. There appears on earth then a 
new hero, perhaps a new martyr, the founder of a 
new movement, or a spiritual regenerator of the 
order that is dying out. 

This back- flow of the spiritual consciousness upon 
itself, caused by a deep sense of the prevalence of 
death and dissolution, is a necessary condition of 
the birth of new spiritual forces and ideals. But it 
alone will not explain the result. The reactionary 
wave is one of despair and in itself will produce only 
the skeptical pessimist who gives up the struggle 
and escapes the anguish of it by a plunge into non- 
being, or the stoic who stubbornly resists in the in- 
ner citadel of his personality, the onset of despair 
and when his dearest hopes are dead " orders his 
stout heart to bear it." But it is only when the 
back-flow is met and overcome by some Divine in- 
flow of new spiritual energy, that the historic indi- 
vidual is born and the stoic is transformed into the 
hero-martyr of a new dispensation. 

In order, then, to conceive the true fortunes of the 
struggle for spiritual freedom in human history, we 
must modify our concept of fatalistic evolution and 
decay by this idea of an epochal inflow of spiritual 
force which embodies itself in the consciousness of 
some historic individual or group, in whom it be- 
comes the living energy of new ideals of life and 



HISTORY 193 

culture, and in wliom also it stands related to the 
dissolutive stages of the old order, checking* its re- 
action of spiritual despair by that inflowing wave of 
new Divine force which brings to light new spheres 
of ideal spiritual life. 

This intuition enables us to restore the broken 
threads of continuity and to see how the joathway 
of humanity may through all its vicissitudes be up- 
ward toward the light. But it contains a presuppo- 
sition ; namely, the inability of the race to conserve 
its own development and its dependence on some 
power that transcends it for the renovation of its 
springs of spiritual energy. For, just as we discov- 
ered in the sphere of the individual life, the neces- 
sary function of a psychic logos which at the same 
time supplies an ideal spiritual force to its devel- 
opment and binds it in a living bond to the being 
that transcends it ; so here, in the broader sphere 
of the universal life of humanity, we come upon the 
necessity for a historic logos which shall at tlie 
same time supply the race with its advancing spir- 
itual ideals and bind it with an indefectible bond 
to that absolute fountain of spiritual energy to which 
it owes the continuity of its life. 

13 



XIII 

RELIGION 

Relig-ion is the highest spiritual outcome of the 
common life of humanity. Its spring is that his- 
toric logos in which there is a functional union of 
man's spiritual nature with the absolute Spirit 
which is its presupposition. It is in this synthetic 
spring that religion has its primal source. An in- 
tuition of this fact enables us to understand, as we 
could not otherwise do, the religious phenomena of 
the race. Man's religious consciousness, even in its 
lowest forms and whatever be the circumstances and 
conditions of its rise, holds in it a sense, however 
vague, of some power that transcends it, upon which 
it depends, and with which it needs to be at peace. 
The conscience of man, instinctively at first and re- 
flectively afterward, identifies this power with the 
source of its own ideal life, and thus the object of 
the religious consciousness becomes also the ideal 
of supreme good. 

Religion thus includes the ethic springs in which, 
as we have seen, are contained the norms of the 
social and civic life of man. And this explains, we 
think, the universal fact that all social and civic life 



RELIGIOTST 195 

and organization are liistorically g-rounded in relig- 
ions soil. For religion is the faith by which the 
spirit of man maintains its yital connection with the 
transcendent ground of its existence and activity, 
and this faith, however rudimental it may be, con- 
stitutes the medium in which man's whole life is 
unified and developed. 

But we are specially interested at this point, not so 
much in the historic aspect of religion as in its nat- 
ure and the grounds on which it rests. The idea of 
religion presupposes certain structural conceptions 
treated of in former chapters ; namely, the ideas of 
absolute being, the world-process as related to its 
absolute ground, and the human soul. Without 
some rational notions of these it will be impossi- 
ble to conceive either the grounds out of which the 
religious consciousness arises or the fundamental 
problems it has to solve. 

Religion rests on a dual relation of distinction 
and synthesis between the human soul and its ab- 
solute ground. This connection can be rendered 
intelligible only when we conceive the Absolute as 
spirit, that is, as self-conscious personal being. 
This absolute Spirit, energizing in the outer nega- 
tive sphere, generates the world which is to be con- 
ceived as the product of a transcendent spiritual 
cause and as containing the potence of spiritual 
development in it as the immanent i^rinciple of its 
activity. This potence, which is nothing independ- 
ent of the Absolute, represents the mode in which 
the creative force generates a developing and de- 



196 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

pendent sphere of reality. It actualizes itself in the 
world-process, passing ujd from mechanism to spir- 
itual actuality, which it first achieves in the soul of 
man. 

The human soul is thus the highest actualization 
of the spiritual potence that is immanent in the 
world. But the human soul is not comjalete actual- 
ity. In it the unfolding world-energy has become 
conscious, and it is, therefore, a being that is ever 
passing out of potence into actuality. This consti- 
tutes its activity a ceaseless evolution, the infinite 
good of which is completely actualized spirit. 

Upon this basis, as we have seen, rises the soul's 
dual consciousness and life. Its activity is a dualistic 
dialectic, a passage from mechanism to spirit and in 
its consciousness experience is a species of dialectic 
between an empirically limited and modified self 
and an ideal self which we have called the psj^chic 
logos. This logos functions as a spiritual ideal 
which contains the norms of perfection and im- 
poses its ethical law upon the soul as its uncondi- 
tional standard of duty. We have seen, also, how 
this psychic logos spheres out into the historic lo- 
gos in the universal life of humanity, and how this 
historic logos becomes the special organ of religion. 

In order, however, to determine truly the nature 
and grounds of religion, there is a special factor 
which must be taken into account, and that is the 
existence of evil. We have in another jDlace endea- 
vored to theorize evil as a factor of reality. Here 
the point of interest is its bearing on the conditions 



RELIGIOlSr 197 

with which religion has to deal. This, however, is a 
diffic'ult problem whose solution involves a rational 
insight into the nature of the relation that subsists 
between the soul of man and the Absolute, since on 
our conception of this relation hangs our whole 
theory of the nature of evil. Now, in the light of 
conceptions already achieved we are led to view 
the relation as being necessarily one of consciously 
distinct individualities. The Absolute can be con- 
ceived only as puriis actus or completely actualized 
spirit, and its consciousness will consequently be 
that of complete and self -realized individuality, 
while the human soul is ever passing from potence 
to actuality in the stages of an evolution, and its 
consciousness is that of an imperfect, developing 
creature. The synthesis is the function of the lo- 
gos. This is one of the hardest points in religious 
philosophy ; namely, to realize how the ideal which 
imposes its law upon the soul, functions also as the 
organ of religion. It is necessary, however, to mas- 
ter it in order to become competent to deal with the 
most vital issues of religious theory. When we posit 
a synthesis between the human soul and the Abso- 
lute in the logos, we do not assert the ultimate 
identit}^ of the two. There is an identity of essence, 
since both are spiritual activities. But there is not 
identity of individuality, of consciousness, or of per- 
sonality. The individualities are distinct in that, 
while both are unitary, the Absolute is self-compre- 
hended in an eternal circle, while the human ego is 
related to an empirical stream which it is ever gath- 



198 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

eriug" up into knots, but never completely compre- 
hending-. The consciousnesses and personalities are 
distinct for analogous reasons, because in man they 
are functions of imperfect, developing activities 
which determine their distinctive characteristics, 
while the consciousness and personality of the Ab- 
solute are absolute and, therefore, incapable of de- 
velopment. 

The synthesis involved must then mean something- 
other than identity. It is a common experience in 
imparting instruction, that the thoughts which are 
perfectly comprehended in the mind of the master 
are able to penetrate the consciousness of the pupil, 
even when they are very imperfectly understood. 
In such case they are only seeds planted, which 
must spring- up and ripen before they are capable 
of becoming in the mind of the jiupil what they 
are in that of the master. Now, we may find in this 
experience of the interaction of minds a key to the 
connection between the Absolute and the human 
soul, in the logos. It is possible that the contents 
of the absolute consciousness may enter the human 
consciousness as norms of a perfection which it 
only dimly comprehends, and the reasonableness of 
this supposition is borne out by the fact that man 
has in conscience such anticipations of a perfection 
that he does not understand, but which at the same 
time presses on him as the ideal law of his nature. 

We conceive, then, that in the consciousness of the 
ideal self or psychic logos, there is such a synthesis 
of the Absolute and the soul of man as enables the 



KELTGION 199 

Absolute to communicate its own thought to the hu- 
man consciousness as the norm of ideal truth, and its 
own will or volition as the norm or law of an ideal 
good. We conceive, in short, the existence of such 
a synthesis as makes the inflow of the Absolute's 
thought and energy into the channels of human spir- 
itual activity not only possible but rational and 
probable. 

The result we obtain from this, perhaps over- 
subtle, disquisition, is the concept of the human soul 
as a being distinct in its conscious individuality 
and in the type of its activity, from the absolute 
Spirit, while it is yet, through its logos-conscious- 
ness, in close and effective connection with it. And 
this brings us to the point where the bearing of 
evil on the religious problem can be most clearly 
seen. If the individuality of the soul is distinct 
from that of the Absolute, then the will of the soul 
is also distinct and it has the power of individual 
choice. But we have seen that the ideal perfection 
of the soul consists in thinking what the Absolute 
thinks and willing what the Absolute wills. The 
soul has a distinct will, however, and may use it to 
dethrone the Absolute from the place of the ideal 
and to put some inferior and creature good in its 
l^lace. Thus evil will originate in the soul and aber- 
ration or departure from its normal orbit will fol- 
low, with all the consequences which have been de- 
tailed in the preceding chapter. 

The effect of this fall into evil, in the religious 
sphere, will be twofold. In the first place, it will 



200 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

produce within tlie soul a depravation of will and 
a consequent corruption of tlie whole nature. In 
the dualistic strug-gie between the positive and 
neg'ative forces of good and evil, the negative 
will g-ain the ascendancy and the soul will set out 
on a downward road. In the second place, it will 
produce what we may call a typed defection, namely, 
a fall from God. The distinction between the soul 
and its absolute gTound will widen into a breach and 
the difference of will and consciousness will become 
a gulf and the soul will become possessed with a 
painful sense of its distance and alienation from 
God. Accompanying this sense of alienation will be 
a deepening experience of the disturbance of the 
normal emotional relation of the soul to God. The 
sense of harmony and of the Divine favor will be 
exchanged for a growing feeling of discordance and 
a deepening sense of the Divine wrath, and under 
the weight of the sense of its own fall from the path 
of the ideal and its own consequent demerit, a load 
of conscious guilt will begin to weigh it down, until 
instead of a joyful bathing of the soul in the light 
of God's countenance, there will be a fearful look- 
ing for of Divine judgment. 

The primal sense of religious need is founded in 
the nature of man as an imperfect creature whose 
progressive life must consist in a development of 
his spiritual potencies into actuality. We have seen 
in the last chapter that humanity has not the power 
in itself to conserve its own development, but that 
the springs of its strength are in the Absolute. Man 



KELIGION 201 

is, therefore, both a growing and a dependent creat- 
ure, and out of this springs his sense and his need 
of religion. The primal function of religion, there- 
fore, is to subserve the spiritual evolution of man 
by binding his soul fast to the absolute source 
of its strength, and by opening it to the inflow of 
the Divine grace through the channel of unifying 
love. But this religious 7ieed is intensijiecl and made 
more urgent hy evil. The moral degradation of the 
soul under the sense of its fall becomes a conviction 
of sin, and the feeling of guilt and the consequent 
anticipation of the Divine WTath are all experiences 
arising from the soul's aberration from the normal 
of its true orbit. In view of them the religious need 
becomes not simply spiritual development and com- 
munion with God but redemption, regeneration, re- 
storation from a fall, atonement and i^ardon. 

Conceiving the need of religion as thus intensified 
by the existence of evil and its effects in the spirit- 
ual world, we see that the problem of religion is 
profounder than that of simple morality. It is true 
that religion must conserve morality, but this arises 
not from the identity of religion with morality, but 
from the fact that religion includes morality. The 
moral intuition conceives spiritual renovation and 
the evolution of man from the inner standpoint of 
conscience. In conscience the ideal law of the 
soul's higher self is revealed and moral x^rogress 
consists in the gradual approximation of the em- 
pirical self to the standard of the ideal. The moral 
drama is, therefore, the inner drama of conscience 



202 BASAL COlSrCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

as an autonomous force. The religious intuition 
goes deeper. It sees that conscience can be auton- 
omous only so far as the Absolute functions in it and 
causes it to think the divine thoughts and utter in 
its legislation the divine will. Only thus, by becom- 
ing the voice of Gocl, does conscience become the 
organ of an ideal law and, therefore, autonomous. 
Keligion recognizes the fact that conscience may be- 
come perverted by turning away from the primal 
source of its inspiration and becoming either self- 
willed and trusting to its own inner light, or j^lac- 
ing some inferior and creature good upon the 
throne of the ideal. Religion says, therefore, that 
the primal need of all, which underlies the moral, 
and the satisfaction of which is the precondition of 
moral good, is the soul's recognition of its depend- 
ence on God and its need of a life in union with 
his. 

Man is an individual with a conscience and a 
moral ideal to realize. He is also a type of being 
standing in relation to the absolute ground of his ex- 
istence and toward which the normal law of his be- 
ing tends in an upward spiritual progress. He has, 
therefore, a typal destiny before him, the achieve- 
ment of unity with the divine life. In view of the 
issues evil has created in the experience of our race, 
both the moral and typal problems have become 
more grave and more urgent. The synthesis of re- 
ligion must include both. It must conserve moral 
renovation and development ; it must also conserve 
the typal need by leading man back to God and 



EELIGIOlSr 203 

keeping' ever alive in liim the consciousness of liis 
divine relationship. 

The conclusions we come to here enable us to 
interpret another element which stands central in 
religious experience and connects it with the pro- 
foundest law of historic progress. It has already- 
appeared that humanity is not able to conserve its 
own spiritual evolution, but must seek the springs of 
its power in the Absolute. From this point of view 
the energy of the Absolute must be conveyed into the 
channels of human activity, and hence arises the ne- 
cessity for mediation. Historic ]3rogress in general, 
as we saw, is mediated by the appearance of historic 
characters and groups, through whom the spiritual 
supply is introduced from the Absolute into the hu- 
man sphere. These historic individuals or groups 
thus serve as reservoirs of a stored-up spiritual energy 
which gradually x)ermeates the mass of humanity and 
constitutes the inspiration of a new national devel- 
opment, or it may be, a new chapter in civilization. 
This law of mediation finds its most important and 
momentous application in the sphere of religion. 
The profoundest root of religion is, as we have seen, 
the synthesis of the human consciousness with the 
Divine in the historic logos, and out of this root 
springs also the deepest issue of religion ; namely, 
the typal union of the soul with God as the primal 
condition of all spiritual and moral good. 

Since, then, religion is concerned with the springs 
and roots of all spiritual life and development, it is 
to be expected that this spiritual law of mediation 



204 BASAL COlSrCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

will have its most momentous application in the re- 
lig-ioiis si)here. Every historic personage through 
whom a real advance is made in human progress is 
a mediator, and every group or nation which adds a 
chapter to the spiritual evolution of humanity is the 
bearer of an inspiration which it has received from 
a higher source. But the mediator may not be con- 
scious of his mission. The historic logos may use 
the individual or the nation for the accomplishment 
of a purpose which the agent does not realize. This 
has been finely iDortrayed by Shakespeare in the his- 
torical plays. Julius Cfesar, as the incarnation of 
the imperial spirit, rides triumphantly into power 
over the ruins of the Republic, although his own re- 
flection shows little other motive than personal am- 
bition. Again, in the English series, Bolingbroke 
is able to destroy the old monarchy and introduce 
a new chapter in English history, because he is the 
bearer of the new national spirit, although he shows 
little consciousness of the mission he is realizing 
and is dominated, in the main, by somewhat paltry 
personal aims. The historic logos employs uncon- 
scious and, it may be, hostile instruments to accom- 
plish its purposes, and history will be studied with- 
out discernment if the wide and important scope of 
this unwitting media,tional function be not recog- 
nized. For there is a true sense in which the logos 
overrules all things, and even the wrath of wicked 
men is made to subserve the ends of good. 

But the religious mediator is one who is conscious 
of his spiritual mission. Whether he be the foun- 



EELIGION 205 

der of a new dispensation or a prophet and reformer 
of an old one, lie must feel himself to be the mouth- 
piece and organ of the SuiDreme Power. He must 
be God's man, and speak and act as he is moved by 
the Holy Ghost. He may be mistaken and the light 
that is in him may be mingled with darkness, but he 
must always be the conscious organ of a spiritual 
power that is higher than himself. Every new re- 
. ligion and every great reform, or revival of an old 
religion, is mediated by such a historic individual or 
group, and the new spiritual impulse that is thus 
communicated to the race will have a power to mould 
and elevate humanity that is proportioned to the 
spiritual purity and elevation of its organ. 

The mediation effected may, however, be only rel- 
ative and incomplete. The historic individual may 
found a new dispensation, as Mohammed did, with- 
out himself claiming divine honors or becoming an 
object of religious worship. The historic mediator 
may simply regard himself as God's i^rophet. He 
may be conscious simiDly of speaking as he is moved 
by the Holy Ghost, and although in performing this 
function he may found a new religion or introduce 
a new spiritual content into one that already exists, 
his function will be different from that of a media- 
tor who is also the Christ. This will appear if we 
determine what the Christ-function is and what it 
implies. The historic logos is the medium through 
which all spiritual truth comes to man. Now, the 
primal ground of spiritual communication in this 
medium is a synthesis of the divine and the human. 



206 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

in which the divine spirit informs the human spirit 
with energies that inspire it, but which the human 
spirit only partly apprehends. The prophet is the 
man who realizes this mode of divine communica- 
tion in his consciousness, and is inspired by it to 
the utterance of new truth. 

There is conceivable, however, a higher conscious- 
ness than this ; namely, the consciousness of the syn- 
thesis itself. The logos, as we have seen, is that or- 
gan in which the norms of perfection are revealed, 
conscience giving the revelation on the ethical side. 
These norms imperfectly apprehended by the human 
spirit, are recognized as lineaments of an absolute 
consciousness in which they are completely realized. 
Could the logos now completely realize its con- 
tent, there would appear a soul in which the con- 
sciousness of the synthesis would arise and it would 
feel itself to be both human and divine. There is no 
contradiction involved in the conception of such a 
nature. It is in fact the logical outcome of the idea 
of creation developed in the chapters on Being and 
Non-Being and Becoming. We there reached the 
conception of the world as the product of the logos- 
energy of the Absolute. But the world rises to 
spiritual consciousness in the human soul and this 
soul has immanent in it the consciousness of an ideal 
which it cannot fully realize and this ideal, con- 
ceived as completely actualized, is also its idea of 
absolute spirit. The ideal thus mediates between 
the soul and the Absolute, entering on the one side 
into the developing series of the temporal life and 



RELIGION 207 

on the other side resting- in the eternal blessedness 
of the Absolute. In it the teleological idea of the 
creation is therefore realized. 

The synthetic consciousness which thus arises is 
that of the Christ as distinguished from the religious 
prophet. It is a consciousness in which an ideal 
harmony or atonement is established between the 
divine and the human. It is a consciousness in 
which the typal gulf is perpetually closed and unity 
is restored by the entering of the soul into the son- 
ship of God and the reciprocal passage of the divine 
Father spirit into the soul as God in the Christ, 
reconciling the world to himself. 

The Christ, then, is the ideal mediator between 
God and the human spirit. There may be prophets 
without number, who embody the divine inspira- 
tion, and founders of new dispensations which mark 
decided spiritual advances of the race. But as there 
is only one God and one perfect ideal for humanity, 
it is not conceivable that there should be more 
than one perfect type of mediation. The historic 
individual in whom this perfect type is embodied, 
will stand, therefore, as the Christ of the race. He 
will be the founder of the perfect universal religion 
of the spirit, which will ideally meet every need 
and become the great spiritual fountain-light for all 
humanity. 

The above analysis supplies criteria by which 
various religious conceptions may be judged. Of 
these conceptions the leading at the present day are 
mysticism, agnosticism, positivism, the moralistic 



208 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPITY 

theory of Kant, and the absolutism of the school 
of Hegel. Mysticism is an element in true as well 
as false religion. Its truth consists in the fact that 
the soul, through the organ of the logos, becomes 
inspired with truth which it can only imperfectly 
understand. It is compelled, therefore, to resort to 
symbols and imagery which present in concrete 
vision what the reason is able only iDartially to 
translate. Mysticism becomes false when it at- 
tempts to substitute its symbols for completely 
rationalized conceptions. The two historic embodi- 
ments of this misuse of mysticism are Hindu pan- 
theism and the Theosophy of Jacob Bohme. Hindu 
pantheism starts with the conception of the noth- 
ingness of the relative or phenomenal world and 
reaches with a bound the idea of the Absolute as 
the unitary negation of this nothingness, an un- 
thinkable Nirvana into which everything falls and 
is lost. Jacob Bohme starts with the conception of 
absolute being as a chaos of struggling and hetero- 
geneous elements, light and darkness, life and 
death, good and evil, out of which a dualistic world 
gradually emerges. 

Neither of these forms of mysticism are able, how- 
ever, to arrive consistently at true religious concep- 
tions. Hindu pantheism, through its negative idea 
of the Absolute, can achieve nothing but an ideal 
which swallows up the human spirit, and it can 
found no religious discipline, therefore, except a 
prescription for self-annihilation. The Bohmistic 
scheme fails also, but in a somewhat different way. 



EELIGION 209 

Throug-h its confusion of being and non-being- in 
one conception, it is unable to achieve any rational 
or coherent ideas of the world. The result is a 
species of intellectual chaos out of which the pro- 
foundly religious feeling of Bohme is able to elicit 
only the semblance of order. 

Agnosticism is the theory that postulates the ex- 
istence of an unintelligible absolute as the ground 
of the world. It clings to the transcendent idea of 
religion, but because the absolute nature is incon- 
ceivable it finds itself unable to realize any nexus 
between the Absolute and the relative. This deprives 
it of any intelligible basis for religion and it is com- 
pelled to fall back on the sense of mystery as the 
sole content of the religious consciousness. This is 
tantamount to defecating the religious idea of both 
its moral and typal significance. The agnostic may 
then speak of reverence and worship, but these 
sentiments can only be called forth by moral and 
spiritual attributes. The logic of agnosticism in 
the end reduces the whole religious problem to an 
enigma which it is compelled to give up. 

Positivism eliminates the Absolute from its relig- 
ious conceptions altogether and seeks to find in 
humanity a satisfying object for the religious con- 
sciousness. Its idea of man is also a purely natural- 
istic one, from which all spiritual elements are elim- 
inated. There is, thus, no spiritual foundation left to 
build on and what it proposes is not religion, but 
a substitute that fails to satisfy most of the pro- 
founder demands of the religious consciousness. 
14 



210 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

Of the moralistic theory of relig-ion Kant is the 
ablest exponent. " Religion Within the Limits of 
Pure Eeason " is almost the greatest modern phil- 
osophical treatise on religion. It is founded on a 
fine intuition of the dualistic nature of man's moral 
consciousness. The indwelling in man of opposing 
principles of good and evil is posited as the ground 
of an everlasting moral struggle. And this strug- 
gle supplies the basis, on the humanistic side, for a 
doctrine of the atonement made by Jesus Christ, 
through which is secured the victory of the good 
over the evil and the establishment of a kingdom of 
God on earth. Here is a moral conception which 
leads us to expect much when the philosopher takes 
up the consideration of the transcendent aspect of 
his problem. But here Kant strikes the limits of 
his philosoj)hy. The root of the difficulty is his 
failure, in dealing with the metaphysical side of the 
problem of knowledge, to reach any adequate notion 
of the nature of God or any solid assurance of his 
existence. His failure here cuts him oif from any 
rational doctrine of transcendence, a failure which is 
not retrieved in his moral postulates. For these 
simply assert as moral necessities, but without any 
additional speculative insight, the fundamental data 
of religion ; namely, the existence of God as a tran- 
scendent being and the freedom and immortality 
of the soul. And depending absolutelj^ on moral 
grounds for their validity, the data of religion must 
be subordinated to the data of morality. The result 
of this failure to assert any real transcendence is 



EELIGION 211 

tliat religion is Yirtimlly reduced to a liiimanistic 
basis. Kaut's theory of religion is fine on its ethical 
side, but its speculative blindness causes it to miss 
or adumbrate many of the basal ideas and distinc- 
tions on which an adequate philosophy of religion 
must be grounded. 

Absolutism in religion is represented by the Heg- 
elian school. Hegel's intuition strikes deeper than 
Kant's, and obtains a fuller and firmer grasp of spirit- 
ual reality. For a conception of the internal move- 
ment of spiritual activity and of the living process of 
absolute spirit, Hegelism alone, of modern systems, 
supplies an effective clue. But Hegel fails in one 
cardinal point of religious theory. He is never able 
to differentiate absolute spirit from the spirit of man. 
This weakness arises, as we have seen m an earlier 
chapter, from his failure to achieve a true doctrine of 
the negative. This alone enables us to conceive the 
modification that constitutes the differentia of rela- 
tivity and consequently the differentia of the human 
soul. Not being able to differentiate the Absolute 
from the conscious activity in man, Hegel sees no oth- 
er way of defining religion than as the consciousness 
which the Absolute has of itself. This is virtually to 
annul the human spirit as a distinct individuality, 
and, as we have seen, this would suppress the basal re- 
lation out of which the religious consciousness arises. 

This difiiculty appears very clearly, in a somewhat 
different form, in a recent work by a distinguished 
member of the school.^ The primal distinction in 
' Evolution of Relision — Edward Caird. 



212 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

consciousness, tliis antlior reasons, is that between 
subject and object. But this dualism is reduced to 
unity by a higher bond. This bond which unifies 
subject and object is God, and the unitary con- 
sciousness is what Hegel would call the Absolute's 
consciousness of himself. This doctrine has far- 
reaching- consequences in the work alluded to, for 
it virtually assumes that God and the principle of 
unity are one and the same. The author so under- 
stands it, and when the question of God's relation to 
the world-process arises he flatly denies all tran- 
scendence and identifies God completely with the 
immanent principle of the world's CYolution. 

The truth is, we find a common microbe at work 
here and in old Hegelism. For the unitary bond 
which is here identified with the Absolute is the 
common possession of all self-conscious spiritual 
beings. That fact, however, is consistent with the 
existence of distinct consciousnesses, individualities, 
and wills, and these constitute the real distinctions 
in the spiritual world. What this author calls God 
is an abstraction, for it is what is left of spirit when 
all distinctive characteristics have been abstracted 
from. The idea of the unitary bond is the bare idea 
of spiritual substance. And it is clear that when this 
abstract notion of spiritual substance is mistaken 
for the idea of God, the thinker who commits the 
mistake will be in a dilemma similar to that of 
Spinoza, and there will be no escape from a species 
of naturalistic pantheism. 

An adequate conception of the historic evolution 



EELIGION 213 

of religion is possible only in view of the true data 
of religion. These, as we have seen, are (1) a trans- 
cendent Absolute whose energy functions creatively 
in the world as an immanent spiritual principle or po- 
tency ; (2) the human soul a spiritual principle pass- 
ing perpetually from potence to actuality and thus 
epitomizing the world-progress from mechanism up 
to actualized spirit ; (3) the logos which functions 
immanently as man's ideal law - giver and tran- 
scendentlj'' as the organ of divine communication to 
the human soul. It thus becomes the organ of the 
religious consciousness. Out of these conditions the 
evolution of religion arises. No evolution is con- 
ceivable on a purely naturalistic basis ; much less 
an evolution of religion, for, as we have seen, all 
world-progress is the function of a spiritual potence 
and the immediate presupposition of this potence is 
a transcendent actuality. Now, the religious con- 
sciousness involves this presupposition raised to its 
highest power, since it is the organ of man's highest, 
that is, his ideal spirituality, and springs out of the 
function of the logos, which is the point of imme- 
diate spiritual communion between the human and 
the divine. The very existence of this communion 
involves the idea of an absolute spiritual energy 
transcending in its conscious individuality and will 
the human spirit with which it communicates. And 
the evolution of religion is the direct function of 
this inter-communion which is the spring of a de- 
veloping spirituality and of an evolving religious 
consciousness^ 



214 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

The law of relig-ious evolution is also that law of 
general spiritual progress which we have developed 
in the preceding chapter, raised to its highest 
power. That law is founded on the presupposition 
of an inter-communion between the human spirit 
and its transcendent ground. Its operation is con- 
ditioned, as we have seen, by two circumstances of 
profound import. One is the inter-dependence of 
the transcendent and immanent agencies in deter- 
mining the stages of the evolution. It has been 
pointed out how the appearance of the prophet or 
founder of a new dispensation is conditioned on the 
one hand by a back-flowing wave of spiritual de- 
spair and on the other, by an inflow of new spiritual 
energy from the absolute sirring. The juncture and 
inter-action of the immanent and transcendent forces, 
thus produces the spiritual embodiment of a new 
advance in the religious progress of humanity. The 
other circumstance is the inter-play of evil with the 
forces of good. Evil is an omnipresent fact and con- 
tingency in the world and it functions as an adver- 
sary, as a principle of degeneration, rotting spiritual 
fibre and producing an ever-active tendency to dis- 
solution and death. We have seen how active moral 
evil arises as an effect of the human will wresting 
itself from the divine and embarking on its own re- 
sources. It thus attempts to ignore or cancel one 
of the profoundest negative laws of human experi- 
ence ; namely, man's inability, either as an individ- 
ual or as a race, to conserve his own spiritual evolu- 
tion. The option of the evil will cuts the divine 



RELIGIOlSr 215 

branch on which humanity rests and the inevitable 
tendency is a g-ravitation downward toward spiritual 
death. The operation of evil thus complicates and 
intensifies the situation and gives to the whole spir- 
itual history of humanity the appearance of an evo- 
lution which is constantly being swallowed up in 
dissolution. 

It is only in the light of the true law of spiritual 
progress that the outlook becomes more hopeful. 
The spiritual ocean may on its surface seem a stag- 
nant pool covered with the debris of dead and de- 
caying religions and civilizations. But beneath are 
the currents that conserve its life and enable it to 
throw off the miasma of death. These embody 
themselves in new spiritual reservoirs which supply 
the energy of a new national development or civili- 
zation. And since experience teaches us that the 
absolute springs require many human vessels and 
that it is not given to the same nature or line of 
historic individuals to be the bearers of the highest 
inspirations in art, literature, philosophy or civil 
government, so we must bear the same lesson in 
mind in our search for the true steps of religious 
evolution. We must look for the nations and lines 
of prophets which are the bearers of the highest 
religious inspiration and which embody, therefore, 
the gulf-stream of spiritual history. The fortunes of 
the movement which embodies the highest religious 
experience of the race, will not include the whole 
record of religious evolution, nor will it enable us 
to ignore the inferior lights of other movements in 



216 BASAL COiSrCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

spiritual history, but it will mark the line of great- 
est intensity, the points where the religious forces 
converge, and where the highest issues of the spirit- 
ual drama of the race are decided. 

We may expect also that the race mediator and 
the race religion, if they are to be born into the 
world, will appear in connection with this supreme 
movement. For if spirit finds it necessary to con- 
centrate its energies into special lines in order 
to produce the master-results in other spheres of 
race-progress, much more shall we expect that in 
this highest sphere of its energizing the same law 
will apply and that the embodiment of the supreme 
ideal of the religious consciousness of the race will 
emerge in historic form at the flood-tide of the gulf- 
stream of spiritual experience. That the spirit of 
man requires but one ideal mediator is clear. That 
the embodiment of such a mediator must be the su- 
preme effort of spiritual evolution seems no less 
clear. And from this it seems to follow with con- 
vincing force that but one such embodiment is pos- 
sible to a race, and that in this it achieves the ideal 
basis of its universal religion. 

The religious theory of evolution posits as its 
primal ground a transcendent and absolute spirit 
whose creative energy is the presupposition of the 
spiritual potence of the world. It X30sits a world- 
IDrocess which passes from mechanism to spirit, and 
which has for its immanent ground a spiritual po- 
tence that contains the forms of relative being. It 
posits a human soul which is a spiritual potence 



RELIGION 217 

passing- into actuality, and which in its experience 
epitomizes the world - process through which its 
self-conscious individuality has been achieved. It 
posits in this soul an immanent ideal which ener- 
gizes as the main-spring of its moral and spiritual 
activity and as the logos in which it is individually 
and historically united to its transcendent spiritual 
ground and which functions, therefore, as the spring 
of its religious consciousness and life. It posits on 
this basis a religious evolution in which, through 
the divine agency and assistance manifesting itself 
through the law of spiritual mediation, the race 
presses upward toward God its Father. And it 
posits as the supreme point of this movement, as 
appearing at a supreme crisis in spiritual history, 
the ideal mediator and the founder of the universal 
religion of humanity. This ideal mediator is the 
incarnation of the consciousness of the logos in 
which God is manifest, reconciling the world to him- 
self. This is the highest, the ideal outcome of the 
world's spiritual history. The religious theory of 
evolution thus posits a divine process which, as be- 
gun, continued and ended rests upon God, but a proc- 
ess which cannot be iDantheistically conceived, since 
in its inception, in every steiD of its progress, and in 
its ideal culmination in the logos, a real distinction 
is grounded and maintained between the creation 
and the absolute spirit to whose energy it owes its 
beiue:. 



XIV 

AET 

A true Metapliysic of Art can be achieved only in 
the light of the categories of being, non-being, and 
becoming. We have already seen how these ideas 
supply a basis for a structural ontology of theo- 
retic and practical philosophy. They will be found 
equally effective in helping us to arrive at a rational 
theory of art. 

There are three categories in the philosophy of 
art which must be kept distinct ; namely, Art Crea- 
tion, Art Bepresentation, and Art Appreciation. 
The highest category is that of art creation. In 
dealing with it, it will be necessary, as in the treat- 
ment of morality and theoretic science, to distin- 
guish between absolute and relative and to seek the 
first norms of art in the bosom of absolute being. 

In the chapter on Morality, we followed the dia- 
lectic of the absolute spirit through stages of intel- 
lection and volition to that of love, which includes 
both and proceeds under the category of unity to 
realize wholeness or completeness of being. And we 
saw how out of this unifying impulse of the Abso- 
lute spring the norms both of the moral idea of holi- 



ART 219 

ness and the aesthetic idea of beauty. Now, back of 
this impulse lies the concrete spiritual activity it- 
self, which in this relation we may call the artistic 
intelligence, which is to be conceived on one side as 
a sense for unity and on the other, in Mathew Ar- 
nold's phrase, as a sense for beauty. We will have, 
in short, the idea of an intellig-ence that apprehends 
and grasps all parts and details mediately through 
the idea of the whole from the contemplation of 
which it also derives an aesthetic satisfaction. 

If we apprehend rightly the nature of art-intelli- 
gence we have a clue also to the ideal of all art-crea- 
tion. For no category will be adequate to the art- 
intelligence but that of unity, and no ideal but that 
of wholeness. And in the absolute sphere this 
ideal can be none other than the idea of absolute 
being itself. It is the idea of a nature in which 
unity is not reached through the compounding of 
differences, but in which the unity strikes first, so to 
speak, and differences arise through it and exist and 
are intelligible only in relation to it. The idea of 
absolute art is, therefore, absolute being conceived 
from the standpoint of its individual unity, that is, 
as a unity that comprehends all differences. 

It is clear, in view of the above conceptions, that 
the art-process in the Absolute is identical with that 
of the absolute self-activity as a whole and in its 
most concrete form. This self - activity conceived 
in the light of the logos includes the categories of 
intellection or ideal truth and of volition or ideal 
good, as well as that of feeling or ideal beauty, and 



220 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

it enables us to reacli the intuition of absolute art 
as realizing- beauty, the ideal of feeling-, under the 
highest idea or form of the intellect and in the mode 
of the ideal good, which is free self-expression. 

Now, the idea of absolute art here reached does not 
differ materially from that of Plato, or his modern 
disciples, so far as they reproduce the spirit of the 
master. But in Plato's theory there are two defects. 
In the first place he does not anywhere clearly 
distinguish between absolute and relative art, and 
secondly, he is never able to hit upon a rational rela- 
tion of the ideas of the beautiful and the good. 
He tends, therefore, continually to merge the beau- 
tiful in the good, and to restrict art to the represen- 
tation of the good. 

His shortcomings in this latter respect come out 
somewhat glaringly in his Republic, where for ex- 
ample, in adapting the products of art to pedagogi- 
cal needs the Iliad is so expurgated as to metamor- 
phose Homer into a species of Hellenic Tupper 
sedatelj^ aiming moral aphorisms at the heads of the 
Greeks. Had Plato carried out his dialectic more 
completely and realized the true distinction between 
the beautiful which is an emotional category, and 
the good which is a category of will, he would have 
been enabled to determine a sphere for art at once 
related to ethics and distinct from it. 

Kant in all his Critiques has the vision of an intel- 
ligence that is constitutive, to use his own term, and 
whose activities are creative rather than representa- 
tive. But he is never fullv able to realize his intui- 



ART 221 

tion. It is clear, however, that in this notion of a 
constitutive intelligence is contained a germ which 
might be unfolded into the idea of self-activity, and 
it is clear also that the conception of such an activity 
would have supplied to Kant a clue he was con- 
stantly searching for but could never find, to the 
true idea of art. 

Hegel has discovered this clue and conceives art 
to be the immediate self-manifestation of absolute 
spirit in the sensuous sphere, while the beautiful 
is the absolute idea shining in sensuous form. 
Hegel's intuition is the Platonic and he realizes 
clearly enough the essential nature of absolute 
beauty. But he falls into a difficulty analogous to 
that of Plato ; namely, a failure to make a true dis- 
tinction between the absolute and relative spheres 
and conceptions of art. In view of the modification 
which the absolute energy undergoes in constitut- 
ing ths categories of relativity it is evident that there 
can be no unmediated manifestation of the Absolute 
in sensuous form, and that the categories of relative 
art must be determined in view of this modification. 

The sphere of absolute art is the absolute nat- 
ure, and the objects of the absolute artist in that 
sphere is the eternal and absolute Spirit, which em- 
bodies the supernal beauty. Relative art -creation 
has two spheres, that of the creative artist and that 
of man. The relative products of the creative artist 
can be conceived only through a true idea of crea- 
tion, which we have seen to be, not an immanental, 
but an outgoing, activity of the Absolute and to 



222 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

consist in the production of forms and energies of 
becoming- in the sphere of non-being. We have 
also seen how the categories of the absolute energy 
are modified in this process into the categories of 
relativity, and how a process of development is 
grounded in which the creature passes from mechan- 
ism up to sioirit. 

It is only through the idea of creation as a mode 
of the absolute energy that a true notion of the 
work of the absolute artist in the sphere of becom- 
ing can be achieved. Creation is to be conceived 
as a formative energy working upon pure formless 
negation and producing out of it a relative, and not 
an absolute, manifestation. It is also through the 
same idea that an intelligible conception of the 
archetypes of becoming may be realized. We have 
already seen how the absolute energy becomes im- 
manent in the world as the spiritual potentiality 
out of which its development springs. Here we have 
to add, that this potentiality is not undifferentiat- 
ed capacity but rather a sphere of archetypal ener- 
gies which realize themselves in the progressive 
categories of the world. This spiritual potential 
stands thus as the equivalent of the Aristotelian 
forms before they have become actualized. And 
conceived as containing the potential archetypes of 
the creation, this spiritual potence stands for the 
world-idea as it exists in the mind of the divine 
artist. 

Now the world-idea as it embodies itself creative- 
ly in the spheres of cosmic and psychic nature, 



ART 223 

may be conceived as passing- throug-h the categories 
of mechanism, mechano - teleology, and teleology. 
Mechanism realizes itself in cosmic nature and has 
its norm in a mathematico-mechanical idea of order 
and harmony. The old Pythagorean notion of num- 
ber as constituting the principle of cosmic order is 
an anticipation of this mechanical ideal. It is this 
notion of a mathematically complete order, harmo- 
ny and system in space and time that must be con- 
ceived as constituting- the immanent idea of art in 
the sphere of mechanical becoming. Mechano-teleo- 
log-y manifests itself in that process in cosmic nat- 
ure which leads to its transcendence in the genesis 
of psychic nature. Its idea is that of mechanism as 
implicitly containing- a teleologic principle which is 
wholly concealed in the inorganic sphere, but be- 
gins to manifest itself in the organic in the form of 
an explicit design or adaptation of organs and parts 
to a rational idea which can only be construed ade- 
quately as their end. In the sphere of organisms, 
therefore, we come upon the first explicit traces of 
teleology. It is only in the culmination of the or- 
ganic, however, in the appearance of soul as an or- 
gan of spiritual self-activity that mechano-teleology 
reaches its climax, in the notion of the production 
of soul as the final goal of cosmic nature. In other 
words, it is only in psychic nature as embodied in 
man that the underlying design and rationality of 
cosmic nature is completely manifested. 

Teleology is the artistic category of ps^^chic nat- 
ure. Here we enter the sphere of the explicit 



224 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

strugg-le of the ideal rational and spiritual, to over- 
come and transform the mechanical. The idea of 
this strug-g-le and its sokition is the immanent ar- 
tistic motive of the psychic movement, while the 
transcendent ideal which stands as its g^oal is the 
idea of typal reconciliation between the psyche 
and its absolute ground. The artistic idea in the 
psychic sphere embraces therefore the whole strug- 
gle of humanity, viewed from the ideal teleologic 
standpoint, as a progressive triumph of the ideal ra- 
tional and spiritual princix^le over its opposite, a tri- 
umph which realizes itself in sensuous, intellectual, 
moral, politico-social and religious stages. The su- 
preme idea of art in the teleologic sphere is that 
of the absolute religion which embraces, as we have 
seen, a perfect form of mediation in its ideal syn- 
thesis of relative and absolute nature in the divine 
logos. Teleologically, the whole drama of becom- 
ing culminates in this idea. 

The absolute artist thus realizes beauty in abso- 
lute and relative forms. Now, art creation viewed 
as a function of the human psyche, in the most gene- 
ral sense of the term, includes all civilization and 
culture, the whole output of humanity. But more 
restrictedly it embraces only that part of the output 
which has had for its dominating motive the grati- 
fication of what Mathew Arnold calls the sense for 
beauty. We have already analyzed the idea of 
beauty into the emotional apprehension of the 
unity of a whole, and the artistic intelligence into 
that free teleologic activity which proceeds from 



ART 225 

the idea of tlie whole to that of distinctions and de- 
tails. It is activity working* under the category of 
free self-expression rather than mechanical activity 
working" under a law externally imposed. Now, an 
artistic product, even in its most rudimental form, 
whenever it is genuinely motived by the impulse of 
beauty, will be found to rise above the requirements 
of utilitarian necessity. Thus a drinking vessel will 
serve the utilitarian demand just as well if it is 
wholly devoid of beauty or even positively ugly. 
The motive that leads to the moulding of it into 
proportions of symmetry and to the executing on it 
of some design, however rude, of a vine or a drink- 
ing scene, will not, therefore, be the prompting of 
necessity, but will rather spring from the free im- 
pulse of beauty. 

Art-creation then, as distinguished from other 
forms of human ]3roductivity, is free construction 
motived by the sense of beauty. This differentiates 
it from industry and all other forms of production. 
It is only the absolute Spirit, however, that can 
realize the ideal of absolute beauty. The psychic 
nature of man rises out of a dualism of being and 
non-being which determines its whole activity as a 
development from i^otence into actuality. The ideal 
of beauty, then, so far as it is realizable in a human 
intelligence, will be relative and imperfect. This 
being the case there will arise in the artistic sphere 
the same necessity for unending development as 
exists in other spheres of psychic activity. The 

perfect ideal is just as unattainable in art as it is in 
15 



226 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PIIILOSOPHT 

the spheres of morality and religion. Art aspires 
after the absolute beauty, but the ideal of its aims 
is something that can never be completely realized. 
The soul of art is its creative spirit ; its body is 
the mode of representation in which it manifests 
itself. This mode embraces both the principle and 
the form of representation. Plato originated the 
false theory that art is mere imitation, and he con- 
ceived imitation in the ignoble form of mimicry, 
thus confounding the first form of the art impulse 
with its essential nature. That the first form of the 
art impulse is imitation seems to be a well-estab- 
lished doctrine.* What is denied here is that the 
im^Dulse would develop true art if it did not event- 
ually rise above imitation. Aristotle adopts the 
Platonic idea, but represents imitation as something 
worthy and dignified. Now, there are branches of 
art, as statuary and portrait painting, in which imi- 
tation plays a leading part. But even here it is 
modified by the conception of the artist. Imitation 
is only a secondary principle in art proper, whose 

* This follows from the general course of Psycho-genesis, which 
is from mechanism np to spirit. Genetically the art-impulse would 
first take the form of imitation. See an able and suggestive article 
on Imitation — A Chapter in the Natural History of Conscious- 
ness, by Professor J. Mark Baldwin, in Mind, January, 1894. The 
principle developed in this article would admit of a special applica- 
tion to the genesis of the art-impulse. Only we must here as else- 
where interpret the genetic process in the light of the basal cate- 
gory of spirit which is development from mechanism to self- activity. 
Imitation is the mechanical moment in a process through which it 
is at length subordinated to a higher form of activity. 



ART 227 

essence is free creation. Art does not imitate life 
merely, but reproduces it with a free hand and 
embodies it in its characteristic forms. The form 
of art-representation is both sensuous and symbolic. 
In its sensuous form it appeals to either eye or ear 
and expresses itself either in the static order of 
coexistence in space or in the dynamic order of 
the time-series. As symbolic the static branch 
subdivides into the plastic and the pictorial, the 
former employing- as its material, substances that 
are capable of being moulded into solid form, the 
latter achieving its results by means of a blending 
of color and light and shade on a flat surface. The 
dynamic branch employs the rhythmic series of 
sound and subdivides according as the sounds are 
simply tones or articulate speech. We thus arrive 
at the following classification according to sensuous 
and symbolic form. (1) Static : architecture, sculpt- 
ure, and painting. (2) Dynamic : music, poetry 
and artistic prose. 

Art may also be classified according to the degree 
in which it realizes freedom of expression, as fol- 
lows : — architect Lire, which is hampered both by util- 
ity and mass ; sculpture, which escapes utility and 
reduces mass ; painting, which escapes mass, and is 
limited only by the capacity of light and colors to 
create perspective ; poetry and artistic prose, which 
escape spatial restrictions and are bound only by the 
limits of rhythmic succession of articulate sounds, 
and lastly music, which escapes the restrictions of 
articulate speech and is obliged to observe only one 



228 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

limit, that of rliythmic tone. In tlie freedom of its 
expression music is, therefore, the supreme art, since 
its rhythmic forms present, so to speak, typal moulds 
into which infinite varieties of spiritual histories may 
be ]3oured. 

The question as to relative worth and dignity of 
modes of representation arises in the sphere of each 
art, but has no special significance as between dif- 
fent types of art. Every art may be made a vehicle 
of the highest spiritual expression, and all arts are, 
therefore, equally worthy in themselves. Different 
arts may, however, and do, differ in their capacities 
for various modes of representation. Thus an im- 
portant distinction between the static and dynamic 
arts consists in the superior capacity of the former 
to express more and to express it more completely, 
in the unity of a single representation. Sculpture, 
painting, and architecture are in this respect vastly 
superior to music and literature. On the other 
hand, the dynamic arts have a great advantage in 
their superior capacity for representing the stages 
of spiritual history. While, therefore, in their power 
to gather up a history into a single representation, 
they are greatly inferior to the static arts, they 
are perhaps more than compensated for this by their 
capacity for a series of representations in which 
almost unbounded liberty as to details is enjoyed. 
One of Lessiug's greatest contributions to the phi- 
losophy of art is his recognition of this distinction. 
Lessing also observes the other fact which is a de- 
duction from the primal distinction ; namely, the 



ART 229 

greater freedom of expression which is enjoyed by 
the dynamic arts. All art is free to represent the 
ug-ly and the horrible as well as the beautiful, 
provided that in the whole representation these 
features be subordinated to the requirements of 
beauty. But, as Lessing shows in his reflections 
on the JOaocoon, this proviso is a much more strin- 
gent limit upon freedom in the static than in the 
dynamic arts. And the stringency is only jjartially 
relieved in a series of representations which em- 
body a history. But in the dynamic arts, where it 
is not the repose of the figures or the perfection of 
single pulsations, but the progressive movement, 
that impresses, there may be included an indefinite 
amount of horrible and repulsive details, provided 
the movement as a whole realizes the idea of the 
beautiful. 

On the whole, it is doubtless true that the greater 
freedom of musical and literary representation ren- 
ders these arts superior as vehicles of spiritual 
self-expression. There seems to be a philosophical 
reason for this at once profound and simple. The 
inner motive of art-creation, as we have seen, is 
what may be called a sense for wholeness. Now, 
the conception of this sense for wholeness as oper- 
ating under the category of free self-expression, 
gives us the most general idea of love. Love 
seeks wholeness and love is, therefore, everywhere 
synthetic and mediatory. But mediation is, as we 
have seen, not only the inner core of all relative 
spiritual history, but it is a teleologic idea which 



230 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

can be realized only in a dynamic series. The 
representation-form of music and literature is this 
dynamic series, and this renders them the most 
fitting vehicles for the representation of the drama 
of mediation. 

The greatest and most typal spiritual theme of 
art is a strug-gie which is mediated by love and 
ends in reconciliation and peace. Music, on account 
of its freedom from the definite suggestiveness of 
articulate s^Deech, is the highest vehicle of this 
mediational motive and touches most x>rofoundly 
the fountains of love. Literature in its supremest 
forms of epic and dramatic poetry, is an embodi- 
ment of this same typal spiritual theme. The 
epic works out the struggle and achieves its media- 
tion and unity in the broad field of national or 
tribal history, while the drama embodies the same 
theme in the sphere of particular individualities. 
Comedy presents the lighter phases of the theme, 
while in tragedy the deepest notes of spiritual ex- 
perience are struck. The struggle is to the death 
and mediation can be achieved only by the shed- 
ding of blood, while the reconciliation and peace 
which ensues is the attainment of a higher plane of 
spiritual life and experience. Aristotle has a pro- 
found insight into the cathartic quality of real 
tragedy which renders it a means of purification 
through terror and pity. A profounder and simpler 
insight will see in it, as its core of spiritual meaning, 
a drama of love and mediation. 

Art and religion are very closely allied both in 



ART 2B1 

their history and their essence. It is in the common 
theme of the hig-hest music and the profonndest 
literature that their ideas seem to coalesce. In the 
same theme we seem to discover the inner spiritual 
idea of art in the light of which the whole develop- 
ment becomes teleologic. For just as the real tele- 
ology of cosmic nature manifests itself in soul, and 
the real teleology of psychic nature reveals itself in 
the perfect type of religion, so here in the idea of 
spiritual struggle mediated through sacrifice, and 
reconciliation and peace achieved on a higher plane, 
we seem to find the real teleologic ideal of art. 

Art-appreciation is not a category of the artist, 
but rather of the spectator and student of art. This 
appreciation has two branches, the intellectual and 
the emotional, and it passes through psychological 
and ontological stages. Ontologically its intellect- 
ual branch is a species of rational knowledge and 
consists in the apprehension of the fundamental 
ideas of art. Rational art-knowledge, in common 
with other forms, can be completely achieved only 
in the light of the categories of being, non-being, 
and becoming-. For the philosophy of art, in 
common mth all philosophy, must find its start- 
ing-point in the idea of absolute being. From this 
idea it is able to deduce the notions of absolute 
creativeness and absolute beauty. But these ideas 
cannot, as we have seen, be carried over unmodified 
into the relative sphere. We cannot truly define 
human art as the Absolute manifesting itself in 
sensuous form until by a true conception of non- 



BASAL CONCEPTS IN" PIIILOSOPIiy 

being and the dualistic conditions of creation, we 
liave acliieved a rational idea of tlie form of becom- 
ing- and its differentia. It will then be possible to 
conceive the presence and activity of a principle of 
absolute intelligence in the psychic sphere, pro- 
ducing manifestations that do not transcend the rel- 
ative limitations. This is a crucial point in art as 
it is in all philosophic theory. The psychic intelli- 
gence contains an absolute principle. But this prin- 
ciple is embodied in a dualistic and developing 
type of individuality, and this difference of type de- 
termines its actual consciousness as relative and dis- 
tinguished from the Absolute. Art, so far as it is a 
function of the human psyche, is a manifestation of 
the dual psychic activity in sensuous form. 

Psychologic art-appreciation on its intellectual 
side manifests itself as art-perception. It follows an 
empirical and genetic order, beginning with the 
simplest and most sensuous relations whose appre- 
hensions are accompanied with pleasurable or pain- 
ful feeling, and passing through stages correspond- 
ing* pretty well to those laid down to Socrates by the 
Theban prophetess. In its path upward the psyche 
first apprehends the beauty of sensuous forms in 
colors and physical proportions. A higher stage 
is the apprehension of the mathematical relations of 
symmetry, harmony, and proportion. The upward 
footsteps then enter the sphere of teleology, passing 
through the portal of mechano-teleology into teleol- 
ogy proper, where the spiritual types of beauty are 
realized, its highest manifestation being in the ideal 



AET 233 

form of spiritual mediation and unity embodied in 
the highest conceptions of art and religion. 

Art-appreciation on the side of feeling is the 
emotional impulse aroused by the contemplation of 
the beautiful. It is the Eros of the Greeks and ex- 
presses not simply x)assive enjoyment, but an active 
apiDropriation of the object. The art-feeling, like 
other forms of spiritual activity, however, passes 
from a potential stage of relative passivity to one of 
realized actuality. It begins as a feeling of pleasure 
or pain that is immediately aroused by the contem- 
plation of sensuous beauty. The development of 
actuality in the aesthetic emotion accompanies the 
progress of the ideal element. As the higher ideas 
and relations of beauty dawn upon the intelligence 
they constitute the ideal basis of higher forms of 
fBsthetic emotion. Thus the emotional apiDreciation 
of the beautiful rises through the categories of 
moral beauty to that of spiritual beauty proper, the 
sphere of the religious emotions, and culminates in 
the ecstatic state of emotion aroused by the beauty 
of holiness. 

Art and utility are very closely related in certain 
deiDartments of art, as for examjole in architecture. 
But even here art begins where utility leaves off. A 
homely and even hideous structure will serve the 
ends of utilitarian comfort. It is the sense for 
beauty that dictates and motives all the features of 
architecture that can be called artistic. This is 
universally true and the only claim utility can have 
on beauty is that of self-i^reservation. It can justly 



234 BASAL CONCEPTS IJST PHILOSOPHY 

demand that it be not sacrificed in the interest of 
beauty. 

Art and morality are more intimately connected. 
They are one in the sense that the supreme motive 
of both is love, and so far as morality embodies love, 
it is beautiful. The relation of the moral law to 
art, however, is analogous to that of utility. Mo- 
rality has the right to demand that its law be re- 
spected and that the good be not sacrificed in the 
interest of beauty. 

The relations between art and religion are of the 
closest kind. The form of the artistic intelligence 
is the same as that of religion. Both are synthetic 
and teleologic, operating under the categories of 
unity and design. Both are spiritual and concrete, 
appealing with equal power to reason and feeling. 
And both contemplate in their highest forms the 
same spiritual ideal, the solution of spiritual strug- 
gle and the realization of unity and peace on a 
higher plane through mediational sacrifice. 



XV 

KNOWLEDGE 

Knowledge is not reality, but the conception of 
reality. The real is, therefore, its presupposition. 
To deny reality is to abolish the possibility of 
knowledge. But the denial is not dangerous, for it 
begins with the denial of itself. If the sphere of 
knowledge is only a sphere of illusion, then illusion 
itself becomes real. Illusion is not an ultimate 
concept. It is the real masquerading in a false 
dress. The false dress presupposes normal cloth- 
ing. The illusory is a species within the genus real. 

Regarding knowledge, four fundamental questions 
arise : (1) How is knowledge possible ? (2) How is 
it made actual ? (3) How are the processes of 
knowledge correlated ? (4) Has knowledge any limit ? 

The first question involves two considerations : (1) 
the ]presupposition ; (2) the first principle of knowl- 
edge. McCosh says the presupposition of knowl- 
edge is reality, and this we also assert. If the real 
is not, then knowledge falls into self-contradiction. 
To say, however, that knowledge presupposes the 
real is only affirming in other words that philosophy 
must have a primal datum to start from. A little 



236 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

reflection will skew tlie identity of these proposi- 
tions. The reality assumed cannot be every or any 
sort of existence. Let us start with some phenom- 
enon which is a species of reality and we find our- 
selves forced back of the phenomenon to its ante- 
cedent in time. But the temporal antecedent is 
only a passing- stage in a procession of reason which 
moves on from the idea of antecedent to that of 
causal nexus as a form of mechanical activity and 
from this to the idea of g-round or activity that 
returns upon itself and is, therefore, self -existent. 
This proves that every assumption is provisional 
except the last, and that every species of reality ex- 
cept the last is provisionally assumed and depends 
upon that last for its justification. 

The unconditional assumption of knowledg-e, 
that on which all provisional assumptions depend, 
is absolute reality. We thus come back to the primal 
insight of Plato and Aristotle, v/ho saw that philos- 
ophy must have an absolute foundation. This ab- 
solute was construed by Aristotle, as we already 
know, into purus actus, or pure self -activity, in which 
there is no unrealized potency. The conclusion we 
reach here is simply a reassertion of the Aristotelian 
principle which makes absolute reality, that is, 
absolute self-activity, the first and only uncon- 
ditional presupposition of knowledge. 

This first presupposition of knowledge leads us 
by a few steps to the first principle of knowledge. 
When Descartes pointed to self-consciousness as the 
first principle of philosophy and defined mind as 



KNOWLEDGE 237 

thinking substance, he had one foot in the kingdom 
but was misled by his false notion of substance. 
Had he learned the lesson of Aristotle and trans- 
lated the idea of substance into that of self-activity, 
his whole theory would have been revolutionized. 
If to the position here asserted, that pure self- 
activity is the first presupposition of knowledge, we 
add the position reached in the chajoter on Con- 
sciousness ; namely, that self -activity and self-con- 
scious activity are identical, we arrive at the idea of 
self-conscioitsness as the first principle of knowledge. 
But so conceived it is a more effective principle 
than that of Descartes. For the idea of substance 
has been translated into the idea of self-activity, and 
when self-consciousness and self-conscious activity 
are identified the principle of self -consciousness be- 
comes one with the principle of self-activity. Self- 
consciousness thus absorbs the idea of substance 
into itself. 

The consequences of this are far-reaching. In 
the first place it reveals the fact that all knoAvledge 
rests on an absolute first principle. If the pre- 
supposition of knowledge is pure self-activity, and 
its first principle self-consciousness, which is con- 
scious self-activity, then it is clear that no catego- 
ries short of pure self-activity and the conscious- 
ness of pure self-activity will serve as primal grounds 
for knowledge. But pure self-activity is absolute 
being and pure self-consciousness is the self-con- 
sciousness of absolute being. The ground and first 
principle of knowledge are, therefore, absolute. 



238 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

Descartes apprehended, though not very clearly, 
the force of this reflection when he argued that the 
existence of an infinite and perfect being is the nec- 
essary presupposition of the self -consciousness of 
man, a contention that is perfectly sound, but which 
rests on its true and irrefragable ground only when 
the principle in the human consciousness is asserted 
to be absolute in its essence and, therefore, in its 
perfect activity, the necessary bearer of an abso- 
lute consciousness. Absolute being is thus an im- 
mediate presupposition of self-consciousness. 

In the second place, this conception of self-con- 
sciousness enables us to discover and ground the 
categories of an adequate and comprehensive theory 
of knowledge. Self -activity is the immediate pre- 
supposition of self-consciousness, but its primal 
categories are those of self and the not -self con- 
ceived as its negative opposite. That both these 
categories are not categories of being will appear 
from the following reflection. Absolute being is 
pure self - activity, and pure self -consciousness is 
consciousness of pure self-activity. The self then 
of the dual categories must be self-active. What 
then is the not-self ? What is it that can be dis- 
tinguished from self-activity as its negation ? There 
is no completely rational answer to this possible, ex- 
cept one that endows being wdtli a primal power to 
distinguish itself from its negative opposite, non- 
being. And this non- being cannot, therefore, be 
conceived as in being but as out of it, as its qualita- 
tive opposite and adversary. 



KNOWLEDGE 239 

The primal not-self, or object, of pure self-activity 
or absolute being is not, then, anything internal to 
being. It is not being (self- activity) going out in 
self-alienation into its other, for this other would 
still be the self and the dialectic which leads to it 
would be only the activity of internal self -evolution. 
The primal not -self is the negative and foe of all 
this self-active process. It is something that must 
be annuled before the universe can contain any 
other conscious individualities distinct from the 
self-conscious absolute. How this negative of be- 
ing is to be conceived and characterized, we have 
treated at length in the chapter on Being and Non- 
Being. The point we wish to insist on here is that 
the primal categories of reality are being and non- 
being, and that non-being is not the alter ego but the 
opposite of being. The altei' ego of being is being in 
some form, but the negative of being is its opposite, 
non-being. 

Now, it is to be remembered that while these 
categories of self and not-self are primal in self- 
consciousness, there is an immediate presupposition 
of self-consciousness and that is self-activity. If we 
call this being, we may then say that the very first 
step of all is being's consciousness of self. Being 
becomes conscious of itself. This is the principle 
of self-consciousness. The second step is that of 
the distinction noted above. Being becomes con- 
scious of itself as distinguished from and opposed 
to non-being ; that is, negation and want. The fact 
that self-consciousness is the presupposition of this 



240 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

distinction between self and not-self, has led some 
thinkers to the conclusion that self-consciousness is 
the unity of self and its negative, or as they prefer to 
say, subject and object. The logic of this position 
is that the negative is only the other of the self and 
ultimately identical with it. Self-consciousness is 
thus made a one-sided principle of comprehension 
which identifies opposites, and comprehends in being 
want and negation as well as the plenum of positive 
reality. But it must be evident that if this ab- 
solute principle comprehends vacuum, that is, want 
and negation, its integrity and its absoluteness are 
destroyed. The Absolute as pure self-activity must 
exclude want, negation, and imperfection. 

We must construe the principle of self-conscious- 
ness as the unity of being and as the principle which, 
therefore, distinguishes being from its not-self, 
negation and want, and excludes it as qualitatively 
outside of and opposed to it. The primal category 
of knowledge, after its first principle, self-conscious- 
ness, is the distinction of self from its negative, or as 
we prefer to say, being from non-being. Now, knowl- 
edge we have defined as the conception or idea 
of reality. The two terms of reality here reached are 
being and non-being. A complete theory of knowl- 
edge must then embrace conceptions of non-being- 
as well as conceptions of being. We have seen, how- 
ever, in the second and third chapters of this book, 
that no positive idea of non-being is possible. Non- 
being is the purely negative term in the universe of 
reality. As pure negative it must be represented 



KNOWLEDGE 241 

by negative conceptions. We have seen that it may 
be best symbolized as an outer sphere which con- 
tains the negative oppositesof the energies of being, 
and which must, therefore, be overcome in order 
that being may realize itself. 

The part which non -being plays as a datum in a 
theory of knowledge enters in those modifications 
of relativity which cannot otherwise be explained. 
Postulating the negative, however, it may be said 
that the chief industry of a theory of knowledge is 
to be devoted to the discovery and exposition of the 
categories of being. In fact its sole interest consists 
in tracing the fortunes of being, non-being playing 
the part of an adversary that must be warred against 
and overcome. 

Those thinkers who adopt the monal concept of 
reality criticised above, also limit the inner dialectic 
of being to self-affirmation and self-negation. But 
the conception of non-being as the antithetic of being 
cancels the moment of self -negation and makes it nec- 
essary to distinguish between the internal activity of 
self-affirmation and the transitive energy by which 
being goes out upon its op]oosite. We have seen in 
the chapters on Being and Non -being, and Becoming, 
how non -being supplies a rational motive for this 
outgo of energy and thus grounds negatively the 
whole process of becoming. It is this dual energiz- 
ing of self-assertion, and negation of the not-self 
or non-being, that is comprehended in the unity of 
self-consciousness. The dual activity is a function 

of being, therefore, but the negated is not included, 
16 



242 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

but excluded and opposed by the energy of being. 
The idea of the self -negation of being involves a 
subtle self-contradiction. 

The dialectic of self-consciousness begins with the 
primal distinction between self and not-self. The 
not-self is non-being, the negation and opposite of 
the self. The second step is one in which the self is 
volitionally asserted, and the not-self volitionally 
denied. But this denial of the not-self is not a pure 
intellectual activity of the self ; it is rather its 
volitional activity which is to be construed as the 
putting forth of creative energy in the process of 
producing being out of non-being. 

Of this compound dialectic the first step is domi- 
nantly a j^rocess of intellection. In the logic of be- 
ing conception iDrecedes and is presupposed in voli- 
tion. Else the whole movement is dark and irrational. 
The position of Schopenhauer and his school is an 
inversion of the necessary log'ic of being. But they 
draw the inevitable conclusion from their transposed 
premises. If we invert the world it becomes irra- 
tional and absurd, and life becomes a ghastly joke. 
We agree with the philosophy that identifies the 
Absolute with absolute thought, in its main con- 
tention ; namely, that logically the first activity of 
all must be intellection. The Absolute must tkink in 
order to vy'ill and act rationally. We only deprecate 
in such thinking its rationalistic tendency to force 
every s^Diritual function into the intellectual mould, a 
tendency which may be cured by the reflection that 
in the Absolute, Avhich can only be conceived as pure 



KNOWLEDGE 243 

actuality without undeveloped potence, there may 
be log"ical dependence, but no derivation. If we do 
not mean then to eliminate volitional function from 
our idea of the Absolute, we must conceive its depen- 
dence on intellection in a way that will consist with 
its originality. This, we think, is possible only on the 
supposition that self-conscious activity has three 
perfectly primal and inseparable modes or aspects ; 
that in one aspect it is intellection ; in another emo- 
tion ; in another volition ; but that in every move- 
ment of its activity, intellection is the first i)resui3- 
position. 

If in this sense the first act of the spiritual dia- 
lectic is one of thinking-, we can see how the intel- 
lectual activity completes its circle, going out from 
itself in the intuition of the negative outer sphere 
and returning upon itself enriched with a dual intui- 
tion of being and non-being. And this will motive, 
as we have seen, the second act, which is one of will, 
the volitional activity going out in the energy of 
creation into the negative sphere, and returning- 
upon itself enriched with a dual realization of being 
and becoming, or, in other phrase, of self and the 
other. This again, to complete the movement, will 
motive the third act, which is dominantly one of 
unity, in which the absolute activity, going out in 
the energy of love upon the other, or becoming, re- 
turns upon itself enriched with a dual realization 
of self and the other reconciled. 

In this dialectic of spiritual activity it is funda- 
mental to observe that the primal intellectual intui- 



244 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

tion which differentiates non-being" from being- is 
not mediated, but stands ox^en, and that this supplies 
the motive for the whole consequent dialectic, the 
will to cancel the neg-ative by producing being in 
its sphere, which gives rise to the creature, a nature 
that contains the potentiality of spiritual being", 
and lastly the outflow of synthetic love which 
mediates the spiritual evolution of the creature and 
brings it into harmony with the creative spirit. A 
clear conception of this, as we think, fundamental 
truth, will make it plain that non-being cannot be 
com]3rehended as a moment in the evolution of 
being, but that it is the opposite of spirit and to 
be mediated only by being overcome. This medi- 
ation can be effected only by volition and love, and 
has for its moments creation and evolution, the pro- 
duction of potential being out of non-being and 
the development of this potence toward the ideal of 
actualized spirit. 

In grounding a theory of knowledge it is not cus- 
tomary to go so deep into ontology. The sufficient 
justification for doing so, however, is its necessity. 
The first principle of knowledge is self-conscious- 
ness, and we have seen that this cannot be conceived 
in any other way than as conscious self -activity. It, 
therefore, absorbs the idea of substance into it and 
becomes also the first principle of ontology. It is 
impossible to develop a rational theory of knowledge 
without showing the ontologic grounds on which 
it rests, and since a complete theory of knowledge 
must include both the Absolute and the relative, its 



KNOWLEDGE 245 

structural ontolog'y will include a rational insight 
into tlie nature of absolute and relative being. Not 
only so, but since there is a difference between 
absolute and relative as well as a sameness, these 
relations must have their reason for knowledge in 
real ontological grounds. For it is rationally clear 
that no theory of knowledge can profess adequacy 
which does not correlate the world and its absolute 
ground in such a manner that reflection may find 
in the ground the rationale, not only of the world's 
existence, but also of its distinctive nature and evo- 
lution. 

From the development of the first principle of 
knowledge and the presui3position of reality on 
which it rests, namely, that of self - existence, we 
reach a structural conception of the system of reality. 
And this, taken as a whole, is to be regarded as the 
condition of the possibility of knowledge. For, 
when the situation has been thoroughly analyzed, 
the discovery is made that the real presupposition 
of knowledge is a whole system of reality ; that the 
assumption of self-existence leads reflection by an 
inevitable route to the ideas of being and non-being 
and the sphere of dependent being and relativity. 
Knowledge confronts this structural system of 
things and its practical problem is how this sys- 
tem of reality is to be actualized in the conscious- 
ness of the individual. This ranks as the second 
great question in a theory of knowledge. 

The mode of individual acquisition is grounded 
in the nature of the human soul. The soul, as we 



246 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

have seen, is a developing' spiritual principle. It 
is, therefore, dual in its constitution, combining in 
itself both potence and actuality. As a developing- 
potence it is a flowing stream ; as an actuality it is a 
self-centred individual. Its life and evolution con- 
sist in a progressive dialectic between these terms, 
in which the tendency is to pass from a stage in 
which the life is dominated by mechanical categories 
to one in which spirit has realized its free activity. 
This idea of the soul as a developing spiritual prin- 
ciple explains two fundamental characteristics of 
individual knowledge. The first is the possibility 
of knowledge being an individual iDossession at all 
when its first principle is a universal. There is a 
common fund of reality, but there can be no com- 
mon fund of knowledge. This arises from the fact 
that man is a develojoing creature. If he were abso- 
lute there would be a common fund of knowledge, 
but there would be only one being to enjoy it, for 
there can be but one absolute consciousness. But, 
as we have seen in the preceding chapter, the mode 
of man's spiritual activity as a developing creature, 
determines his conscious individuality and will as 
distinct. The human consciousness, therefore, con- 
tains an absolute principle ; namely, that of spiritual 
self-activity, but in man, it is a principle of a de- 
veloping life that is ever passing through potence to 
actuality in the stages of growth and evolution. 

The second fundamental characteristic of knowl- 
edge which the idea of the soul explains is the proc- 
ess of acquisition. From mechanism to spirit is 



K]S"OWLEDGE 247 

the law of evolution. The process of acquisition will 
follow this law, and the stag-es in the development 
of its modes, from sensation up to the highest ra- 
tional activity, will correspond to and dejDend on 
the stages in the evolution of the spiritual principle. 
The fact that in the beginning's of the intellectual 
activity the categories of space and time determine 
the form of experience, is not wholly explained by 
conceiving a budding- soul in a bodily organism ; 
but a deeper root of this is to be found in the fact 
that the spiritual jDotence of the soul is itself in that 
stage of activity when the form of its activity is 
most dominated by the mechanical categories. This 
explains why the whole representation - framework 
of its life is mechanical, so that any truth that aims 
to reach the inner citadel of apprehension must come 
thickly coated in the dress of material rejjresenta- 
tion. 

As the life progresses the modes of apprehension 
change ; the merely spatio-temporal forms begin to 
give place to the dynamic, and the intelligence be- 
gins to grasp causation, the inner principle of the 
series. This marks the starting-point of reflection 
and of the intellectual life proper. For the appre- 
hension of causation, even in its most mechanical 
form, leads the mind to look from the fact to the 
condition out of which it rises. And this marks the 
transition from mere representation to conception, 
which is the first term of the life of reflection. The 
central principle of the conceptive form of intellec- 
tion is causation conceived as a bond that connects 



248 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PPIILOSOPIIY 

phenomena witli a chain or series of conditions. It 
is the dominating- category of that middle stage of 
mentality to which the name understanding has been 
applied. But the evolution of spiritual activity 
makes it impossible for the reflective life to stop 
here. Mechanical causation which holds phenomena 
in the bonds of conditions external to them is not 
an ultimate form of activity, but has coiled up in it 
the suggestion of a mode of activity that transcends 
it. In other words reflection must progress from the 
idea of the dependent, or that which has the reason 
of its being outside of itself, to the idea of ground, 
or that which has the reason of its being within 
itself and is, therefore, self-existent. The idea of 
ground is that of self-activity, and thus in the no- 
tion of ground spirit has achieved an idea of its own 
highest category which is self-explanatory. 

Thus the intellectual life culminates on the ob- 
jective side in the category of self -existence or 
absolute being- which we have seen in another 
connection to be the unconditional presupposition 
of knowledge. On its inner side the conscious life 
passes from its representation-form, in which flows 
the life of the purely empirical self, through the con- 
cept-form, which embodies the emi^irico-rational 
self, up to the idea-form, whose principle is self- 
consciousness and whose embodiment is the purely 
rational self. On its inner side, therefore, the intel- 
lectual life culminates in the principle of self-con- 
sciousness, which we have found to be the ground- 
principle of knowledge. By following the clew 



KNOWLEDGE 249 

fiirnislied by the idea of a spiritual principle de- 
veloxDing" from potence to actuality, we are thus able 
to show how the process of acquisition leads up 
to that synthesis of ground-principle and presup- 
position on which the possibility of knowledge de- 
pends. 

The third fundamental question is that of the 
correlation of processes of knowledge. There are 
two generic methods, the deductive or rational, and 
the inductive or empirical. These are both founded 
on what are called the fundamental axioms of 
thought ; namely, identity and contradiction, or, in 
Platonic phrase, the same and the different, and suf- 
ficient reason. Now, these laws when reduced to 
their primal form resolve into the dialectic of spirit 
which we have already unfolded. This dialectic is 
a primal antithetic of thinking by which self-includ- 
ing being excludes its opposite, non-being. 

The two antithetic categories, the same and the dif- 
ferent, constitute the primeval eyes of thinking, and 
its original constitution, therefore, predetermines 
it to be ever on the search for the same throughout a 
chaos of differences. Translating this into terms of 
self-activity which is the highest category of spirit, 
v/e may say that the fundamental law of thinking 
is dual, and that it is of the essence of thought 
to think itself inclusively, and its opposite exclu- 
sively and antithetically. This dialectic functions 
at the heart of all intellectual processes. But it 
is capable of two different modes of application, 
and these modes are the two generic methods. If 



250 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

we start with a rational presupposition and apply 
our dual dialectic to it, the method is rational. Here 
the thought is a two-armed instrument and the move- 
ment of demonstration is the self -inclusion of the 
same and the antithetic exclusion of the different. 
Thought thus cuts both ways, like a double plough- 
share, and the demonstrated result of the i3rocess 
is the thought's own self-included offspring. The 
hackneyed syllogism, " Man is mortal, Socrates is a 
man ; therefore, Socrates is mortal," illustrates this. 
The thought has combined humanity and mortality, 
and wherever it finds humanity it reasserts itself 
and binds humanity to its fellow, mortality. But 
this process of inclusion is by itself an abstraction 
and impossible. The act that connects man and 
mortality is only half a complete thought. The 
concrete thought has its negative exclusive side, 
not-mortal, not-man, which forms the negative back- 
ground of the intellection and follows it through 
every step to the end. The dialectic of thought is 
negative and exclusive as well as positive and inclu- 
sive. But it never negates or excludes itself, always 
its opposite. 

If, however, we start, not with a rational presup- 
position but a fact or group of facts, the same dia- 
lectic will proceed in a different manner. In the ra- 
tional process the dialectic proceeds from an assumed 
relation, and its business is that of dual inclusion 
and exclusion under this relation. But here we 
seem to have isolated facts without any relation. 
Thought, however, cannot get on without relations. 



KNOWLEDGE 251 

How then does the dialectic of thought apply to the 
case ? Evidently in this way : In thinking-, reason 
includes her own, but excludes and negates her op- 
posite. Now, facts without relations, that is, iso- 
lated unaccounted facts, are irrational. Thought 
expels them from her province and then goes out 
upon them by a volitional act in order to overcome 
them and create a rational system out of the irra- 
tional. Here we get at the root of the other great 
principle of thinking ; namely, sufficient reason. 
For sufficient reason is not a purely intellectual 
principle, but contains an element of volition. It is 
the demand of the human spirit that the irrational 
shall be suppressed, and that out of it shall be pro- 
duced a rational system. This demand, which arises 
in view of the negative, is the motive that leads to 
the reference of isolated facts or groups to their 
causal conditions. The result is the emergence of a 
rational order out of the irrational. And we have 
only to follow this process through its successive 
stages of rational genesis until it reaches the high- 
est category and realizes a spiritual result, in order 
to see that in this law of sufficient reason we have 
struck a motive, in substance the same as that which 
we have been led to attribute to the absolute spirit 
as the motive of creation. 

Now, regarding the correlation of these two pro- 
cesses, rational and empirical, it is clear that they 
ought to mutually bear out and supplement one 
another. For whether we start with a rational sup- 
position and come down to the details of its appli- 



252 BASAL COT>J^CEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

cation under the guidance of the dual law of identity 
and difference, or begin with irrational and isolat- 
ed facts, or groups, and proceed upward under the 
imioulse of sufficient reason, we are but traversing 
the same circle in opposite directions, and ought to 
come around to some point where the conclusion of 
one method will bear out the other. That this is the 
true idea of correlation finds confirmation in the 
fact illustrated in the first division of this chapter ; 
namely, that if we start from self -consciousness as the 
first principle of knowledge, we are led by rational 
reflection upon it to a structural ontology in which 
a sphere of relative and created being is grounded 
on the self-existent absolute. Whereas, if we start 
from phenomena and follow the demand of sufficient 
reason, we are led step by step to a point where we 
find in self-existence the objective ground, and in 
self-consciousness the inner principle of all rational 
knowledge. The result here is, on the one hand, 
the grounding of the empirical sphere by means of 
the rational method ; on the other, the confirmation 
of the primal data of the rational method by means 
of the empirical procedure. 

That one method should confirm the other is only 
rational. For whether we start with the principle 
of identity and difference, or with that of sufficient 
reason, the procedure is one and the same, the self- 
assertion of spirit against its negative. If we pro- 
ceed upon the former principle, spirit asserts itself 
overtly and exj)licitly, and excludes and sublates its 
negative ; whereas, if our procedure is under the 



KNOWLEDGE 253 

principle of sufficient reason, spirit overtly and ex- 
plicitly excludes and sublates the negative, while 
the implicit motive of its whole movement is its as- 
sertion of itself. The whole movement, for instance, 
of the log-ic of Hegel is intelligible and rational if 
we conceive that here spirit is proceeding under the 
principle of sufficient reason and asserting itself 
against the negative in an activity which is continu- 
ally producing out of the irrational the stages of a 
rational evolution. On the other hand, Hegel's or- 
dinary procedure is an application of identity and 
difiference, the principle of the common logic, and 
its dialectic when truly understood consists in an 
overt dualistic movement in which spirit persistent- 
ly asserts and includes itself, while it just as persist- 
ently excludes and sublates its negative. 

As to the limits of knowledge, we have seen that 
all method is reducible to one formula, spirit's as- 
sertion of itself. Now, as spirit includes both ab- 
solute and relative, this formula must include the 
whole continent of reality. Logicall}^ then, there 
can be no a2oriori limit of knowledge. The x^rinciple 
of knowledge is all-comprehensive, and this renders 
omniscience logically possible. But there is an onto- 
logical, or rather an onto-psychological, princii3le of 
limitation Avhich is to be found in the nature of the 
human soul. We have seen that the soul is not 
pure actuality, but rather a spiritual principle that is 
passing continually from potence to actuality. This 
means that the soul is an imperfect, developing 
creature. Now, iindeveloped potence is, as we have 



254 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

seen, a limitation which determines the distinctive 
form and bounds of the soul's activity. It is here 
that we strike the true limit of knowledge. It is a 
limit of energy, of spirit's power of asserting itself, 
and rests therefore primarily in the will, and not in 
the thought or intelligence. 

The limit of knowledge is, therefore, not fixed but 
movable. As the human spirit unfolds into actual- 
ity, its power of asserting itself increases, and as its 
intelligence unfolds, thought in its self-assertion is 
able to master progressively higher categories. The 
highest category is that of spirit itself, and when 
the human soul is able to realize all things com- 
pletely under the self-active category of spirit, it is 
able to say that it apprehends even as it is appre- 
hended. 



XVI 

LOGOS 

We have seen in the first chapter of this book that 
the logos-principle is the norm of intelligibility in 
the sphere of reality. What this logos-principle is 
we are now able more clearly to determine. His- 
torically, the principle has its ontologic root in the 
idealism of Plato. From Plato it gradually worked 
its way into the heart of philosophic thinking until, 
under the spiritual impulse of Christianity, it be- 
came, as the category of immanent self-conscious 
personality, the constructive norm of theological as 
well as philosophical conceptions. The unapproach- 
able One of Neo-Platonism, the unrelated Absolute of 
Hellenic Judaism, which is connected with the world 
only through an external logos, becomes the divine 
logos, the Being who is internally self-conscious and 
personal and who manifests himself as the Creator 
of the world out of non-being, and as the mediator 
who leads the world out of its alienation up to God. 
Psychologically, we have found this same principle 
energizing at the centre of modern thinking as the 
basis of certitude and the ground-category of knowl- 
edge. In modern philosophy it is the principle of 



256 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPIir 

self-consciousness, which, as conceived by Descartes 
failed to realize its full jDower. But the tendency of 
modern thinking has been in the direction of a spe- 
cies of psychological immanence which conceives 
the logos as the inner category of substance and 
thus translates it into living spirit. 

The principle of self-consciousness becomes thus 
a norm of conscious self-activity, and conscious self- 
activity is identical with personal, spiritual being. 
And combining the ontologic and psychologic intu- 
itions, the conclusion is reached that all being is in 
its core spiritual and personal. 

It is clear, then, that the logos-principle and the 
principle of pure self-conscious personality are iden- 
tical ; that when we call God the logos we call him 
the self-conscious personal being, and that when we 
call man a self-conscious personal being we thereby 
conceive him as a being of whose spiritual nature 
the logos is the immanent principle. There is then a 
relation of sameness between the absolute spirit and 
the soul of man in the principle which determines 
their conscious and personal life. 

This vital point gives rise to two important con- 
siderations. The first concerns the function of the 
logos-principle as enabling us to determine the in- 
ner natures, respectively, of the absolute spirit and 
the soul of man. Eegarding absolute spirit, we only 
need here to summarize the results of former reflec- 
tions. In the chapter on Knowledge we were able, by 
conceiving the logos-principle as a norm of spiritual 
activity, to follow the immanent dialectic of spirit 



LOGOS 257 

and determine the self-conscious personal life of tlie 
Absolute under three log-ically correlated aspects, as 
absolute thought, absolute will, and absolute love. 
And by construing- the negative side of this dialectic 
in the light of the same principle we were able to 
see how the intuition of non-being arising in the 
primal activity of absolute thought, supplies the 
motive for the out-go of the absolute will in the cre- 
ation of the world in the sphere of non-being, and 
how also the imperfect and undeveloped nature 
of the creature, its distance from the creator, sup- 
plies the motive for the out-go of the absolute love 
in the work of evolution and mediation. 

The principle is equally potent in revealing the 
inner nature of the human soul. We have seen how 
the true idea of the creative function leads to a 
rational conception of becoming and relative nature. 
It determines the soul as a spiritual potence which is 
consciously passing into actuality, as a developing 
creature, therefore, with an infinite spiritual ideal. 
It leads, therefore, to a rational conception of the 
dualism of the soul's conscious experience, and ena- 
bles us to translate it into a struggle of the ideal 
principle of self-conscious activity, to overcome and 
comprehend the flowing stream of the empirical life. 
And it further leads to a rational idea of the con- 
scious stages which the soul passes through in this 
dual evolution. For just as the application of the 
idea of self-conscious dialectic enables us to conceive 
three logically correlated aspects of the personal life 
of the Absolute ; namely, absolute thought, absolute 
17 



258 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

will, and absolute love ; so in tlie psycliic sphere its 
application reveals to us a corresponding dialectic 
in which the spirit asserts itself intellectually in the 
principle of identity and difference, volitionally in 
the principle of sufficient reason and aesthetically in 
the principle of unitywhich is the soul of love. But 
in the human spirit this self-assertion is an ideal 
that is never completely realized, since the spirit 
itself is a developing iDotence whose basal movement 
is an evolution. 

The second consideration is that of the relation 
between the absolute logos and the spirit of man. 
We have seen that in the possession of a common 
j)rinciple they are the same. But this sameness is 
only community of essence. It justifies the assertion, 
that the ideal principle of man's spiritual nature is 
absolute, and that he may, therefore, be the bearer 
of absolute ideas and a knowledge of the Absolute. 
But this only implies community of essence. The 
modification which constitutes man a creature ; name- 
ly, the form of his spiritual activity as a growth or 
evolution from potence to actuality, which also de- 
termines the order of his progress from mechanism 
to si^irit, is the basis of his distinction of conscious- 
ness, individuality, and will. This constitutes him 
the bearer of a conscious life whose principle is 
ideally absolute, but whose individuality is relative 
and distinct. 

There is thus community and distinction between 
the absolute logos and the spirit of man. And we 
have seen in the chapter on Beligion how, through 



LOGOS 259 

this community of spiritual principle embodying- it- 
self on the one hand in the soul's ideal and on the 
other in the Divine logos, a medium of interaction 
and intercommunion is maintained between the soul 
and its transcendent ground. 

The log-OS stands thus as a fruitful norm of phil- 
osophic ideas. It is the principle from which a 
rational conception of absolute being may be de- 
duced. Without it only the existence of an abso- 
lute could be affirmed, while its nature would baffle 
conception. It is the only principle also that makes 
a true conception of the dualistic dialectic of spirit 
possible. "Without the insight it gives the true nat- 
ure and differentia of relativity would be hidden 
mysteries, and no adequate conception of the nature 
of the human spirit and its relation to the Absolute 
would be possible. On any other i^rinciple agnos- 
ticism could not be clearly transcended, nor yet 
pantheism or atheistic individualism. The logos 
is a principle that intelligizes the whole system of 
reality, binding absolute and relative each to each 
in close bonds, without infringing the vested rights 
of either. 

The logos also mediates the evolution of the 
world-process. The categories of its progress are, 
as we have seen, mechanism, life, and spirit. The 
mechanical forces are the first actualities of the i^o- 
tential world-ground. They act without conscious- 
ness or teleologic motive of their own, but they are 
not to be conceived, therefore, as blindly working 
forces, for hidden in them is the will of the logos 



260 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

working" under tlie categ-ory unity. Cosmic nature 
is the sphere of mechanism and of mechanical forces 
and laws. But her presupposition is a spiritual ac- 
tivity which can alone su^oply a completely rational 
idea of her order. 

The world-process, under the impelling- will of 
the logos at length transcends the pure mechanical 
stage and enters that of life, where the spiritual prin- 
ciple begins to function as an immanent unifying 
force in the production of organisms. In the plant 
consciousness is transcendent, but it enters the ani- 
mal as instinct and feeling, and the animal is able, 
therefore, to assert itself against a merely mechani- 
cal existence and to develop a species of imperfect 
individuality. But to the animal, ideality is still a 
hidden force. The animal is a blind servant of the 
logos and represents only a transitional stage in 
the passage of the world from the cosmic to the 
psychic sphere. 

The category of life is that of mechano-teleology. 
Its overt forces and laws are mechanical, but under 
the influence of the hidden activity of the logos 
these forces realize a product which transcends them 
and points necessarily to a spiritual ground. In 
the psychic nature, as we have seen, the logos be- 
comes immanent as a principle of self-conscious 
activity and experience, not as the logos of God, 
however, bringing with it an absolute consciousness, 
but rather as the ideal principle in the conscious- 
ness of an imperfect and developing creature. Here 
it functions as the principle of knov/ledge and as the 



LOGOS 261 

org-an that contains the ideal norms of philosophy, 
science, morality, and art. 

It is by virtue of the logos-principle also that the 
soul of man is able to transcend the limits of its 
particular individuality and to achieve a race-con- 
sciousness as the arena for a historic experience and 
common civic life. Here its output is culture and 
civilization and all that splendid and pathetic record 
that is embodied in human history. In this sphere 
the logos also functions as a principle of spiritual 
freedom motiving and inspiring that teleologic up- 
ward movement of social, intellectual, and spiritual 
progress, which through and over all negative oppo- 
sition and in spite of all subversive and destructive 
tendencies has made the historic record, with all its 
obverse side of darkness and disorder, one of splen- 
did and enduring achievement. 

But not without the Logos of God. The deepest 
intuition of philoso]phy is that which beholds the 
spirit of man in close and living union with its di- 
vine fellow. The human psyche is never away from 
the logos of God, but, as the profound Descartes 
asserted, the conscious principle which gives the 
soul its idea of self gives it also in insepa,rable fel- 
lowshi^D its idea of God. The plummet that sounds 
the profoundest depths of psychic nature touches 
also the nature of God. That God and the psyche 
are identical is, and ever must be, precluded by the 
basal type of psychic nature. But there is unity of 
principle in diversity of type and distinction of con- 
sciousness. The psychic logos and the logos of God 



262 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

are one in their ground principle. Only, tlie latter is 
purus actus in the nature and consciousness of the 
Absolute, while the psychic logos is a germ con- 
taining the potency of rational and spiritual evo- 
lution. 

It is in the light of this potentiality that psychic 
history transcends the category of mechanism and 
becomes completely teleologic. For just as the 
teleologic meaning of cosmic nature is only revealed 
in the appearance of the psyche, so the teleology of 
psychic nature, and through it of all relativity, is 
made clear only in the ideal realization of the 
psychic type. This, as we have seen, is achieved by 
gradations in the spiritual movements of humanity 
and in the medium of historic individuals through 
whom new increments of spiritual force flow in from 
the transcendent logos into human channels. Thus 
humanity travels the toilsome road of a spiritual 
development through which it is enabled to ap- 
proach the goal of its aspiration. 

It is only from the stand-point of religion, how- 
ever, that the teleology of the world can be com- 
pletely understood. Religion, as we saw, is founded 
on a need of mediation which is inherent in the 
psychic nature. Even though evil had never be- 
come real the psyche is mutable and needs tran- 
scendent help to work out its spiritual destiny. 
Much more, then, is this assistance needful when the 
psyche has fallen into evil and sin has become a 
baleful and destructive force. The medial function 
must in that case also become remedial, and the 



LOGOS 263 

psychic nature must be renovated as well as spirit- 
ualized. 

But the remedial function can be no after-thought 
to the Absolute. For the possibility of evil in the 
sphere of the relative can be no afterthought. And 
if no after-thought, then it must be contemplated in 
the world-idea which underlies creation, and in which 
the ultimate key to the solution of the problem of evil 
and all other problems is to be sought. How, then, 
is this world-idea to be conceived ? What is the 
highest thought of the Absolute for the relative ? 
It must be the thought of the absolute religion. It 
must be a mediation that transcends ordinary his- 
toric channels although it embodies itself in the su- 
]3reme historic individual. The logos of God must 
come down to us men from God, must enter into the 
sphere of relativity, into the world of the psychic 
logos, must achieve a consciousness of the material 
and corporeal, must achieve an empiric character 
and consciousness, and a dualistic nature in which 
a spiritual principle and law dominates the empiri- 
cal and brings it into harmony mth itself. The 
logos of God must enter the psychic mould and the 
psychic consciousness in order that it may pene- 
trate the whole sphere of relative being with a realiz- 
ing sense ; in order that it may have a sense of the 
nature, the needs, the weaknesses, the woes, the 
sins, and the struggles of psychic existence. For 
only thus can the ideal good of the race be actual- 
ized, and only thus can the whole relative order be 
finallj' justified. 



264 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

In actualizing this liig-hest good of the relative, 
the logos of God becomes the ideal mediator and 
redeemer of an evil-smitten and struggling race. 
The ideal spiritual life into which man is iierpetu- 
ally to enter is not finite but infinite and divine. 
The Christ-idea is thus no product of the mytholog- 
ical fancy. It springs out of a necessity that is con- 
stitutional to the psychic nature. It is the spirit- 
ual ideal, which though but dimly apprehended the 
relative order has ever had at its heart. The Christ- 
idea is the true infinite ideal of humanity conceived 
as actualized in self-conscious and personal form. 
And as God is the infinite ideal of the soul con- 
ceived as actual, the Christ-idea, when it has once 
become a self-conscious and personal being, will 
embody an ideal synthesis of the human and divine. 

But such an actualization cannot be the product of 
speculation or reflective activity. The redemption 
of humanity cannot be worked out in the closet of 
the philosopher. It must embody itself in concrete 
personal form in some historic individual manifesta- 
tion which philosophy may reflect and translate into 
terms of knowledge, but which she could never create 
from her own resources. The logos of God thus 
becomes the necessary medium of the highest spirit- 
ual revelation and the highest good to humanity. It 
becomes the supreme revelation of the divine right- 
eousness and truth. It embodies the divine pity, 
the divine love and mercy. Into it the divine help- 
fulness and the heart of the divine goodness enter 
in their fulness. It is in the vision of the logos of 



LOGOS 265 

God that the problem of the relative order and the 
world's destiny finds its most adequate solution, and 
it is in the light of that vision that science, philos- 
ophy, art, and relig-ion may clasp hands in the bonds 
of a common faith and hope. 



XYII 

GOD 

The greatest thought of the human spirit is the 
thoug-ht of God. The organ of this thought is the 
logos, and to attain to it the spirit must put forth 
its supremest effort. The genesis of the divine idea 
has both subjective and objective roots. Subjec- 
tively the idea of God arises as the first ]3resupposi- 
tion of the human spirit. We have seen that this is 
self-existence. The idea of God arises out of that of 
self-existence when the spirit construes it under its 
own highest category, namely, that of personal- 
ity. The objective genesis proceeds from the idea 
of the world-ground. The idea of cause has coiled 
up in it the idea of self-activity, and when this pre- 
supposition is drawn out the idea of the world ground 
is born. The last step in the objective sphere is 
identical with that in the subjective. To the idea of 
a self-active world-principle the spirit applies its 
own highest category, and the idea of God emerges 
as the g-round of the world. 

A true insight will be able to apprehend the ra- 
tionale of this process. It is the spirit's assertion of 
its own ideal-self ; that is, of its infinite and joerfect 



GOD 267 

self, as actual. God is the ideal of spirit, and the 
idea of God is the idea of a being in whom this ideal 
is actual. We thus come around again to the Aris- 
totelian conception of purus actus, but now trans- 
lated into terms of spiritual selfhood. The idea of 
God is, therefore, the ideal of the human spirit asserted 
as actual. * 

The problem of God's existence, or rather of his 
actuality, plays a great part in all human thinking. 
The basis of the problem is the synthesis which we 
have discovered in the idea of God between the con- 
cept of the ideal and the assertion of its actuality. 
This identifies the idea of God as it comes into the 
human consciousness with the spirit's assertion of its 
ideal and infinite self. The God -consciousness of 
humanity, as it may be called, is not, then, a pure 
intellection. It is not the absolute thought think- 
ing itself, but it is the absolute will, in which the 
thought is presupposed, asserting itself. The idea 
of God is, therefore, the function of the logos, in 
which there is a synthesis of thought and will. 

The various attitudes which the human spirit may 
take toward the problem of God's actually can be 
most clearly conceived from the stand-point of spirit- 

* It is not sufficient to say that God is the ideal of the human 
spirit. The spirit does not leave the ideal floating about us a mere 
idea. But the self-assertion of its actuality is part of its essence. 
Spirit either affirms or denies God as an actuality. This is, I think, 
the real core of Des Cartes' contention that the idea of God involves 
the predicate of existence. But Des Cartes' argument is only an 
adumbration of the truth. 



268 BASAL COTSrCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

ual dialectic. "We have seen how the primal intui- 
tion of being and non-being- arises in the intellect and 
forms the basis of the self-assertion of the spirit 
tinder the category of will against non-being, in the 
energy of creation. This self-assertion, as we have 
seen, is the function of the spirit as logos. Now if 
we keep the dual dialectic before us we will see that 
the spirit may (1) deny its ideal self, and this gives 
rise to atheism ; (2) it may assert its ideal self, which 
gives rise to positive theism ; (3) it may assert the 
negative of its ideal self or the a-logos, and this will 
give rise to negative theism, a theory that finds the 
negative ground of things in God ; (4) it may assert 
its ideal-self as the unity of being and non-being, 
and this will give rise to four species of pan-ontology. 
Of these two will be negative : (a) the negative pan- 
theism of the Orient which conceives the jplurality of 
definite existence as emanating out of a negative and 
indeterminate one ; (h) naturalism which reverses 
the process and conceives the cosmos as emerging 
from a negative and indeterminate plurality. The 
remaining alternatives are species of positive panthe- 
ism ; (c) a theory in which non-being is conceived sim- 
]ply as the self -limitation of being ; this gives rise to 
a pantheism of the type of Spinoza in which all de- 
termination is negation ; (d) a theory in which nega- 
tion is conceived as a principle of self-diremption 
and non-being, therefore, as a moment of being. 
This gives rise to an absolutism of the type that is 
ordinarily ascribed to Hegel. 

The insight of the dialectic will also make a very 



GOD 269 

brief criticism of these theories possible. If we 
penetrate to the heart of atheism we find that it in- 
volves a self-contradiction, for it is the virtual denial 
of self-existence, which, as we have seen, is the first 
presupposition of knowledge. Atheism in thus can- 
celling- knowledge cancels itself. Negative theism 
arises, we saw, from the spirit's asserting its ideal 
as the negative of self ; that is, as a spiritual be- 
ing whose nature negates spiritual categories and 
cannot, therefore, be conceived. It is clear that this 
is self-contradictory, since the assertion of spiritual 
being carries with it the assertion of spiritual at- 
tributes. Negative theism is founded on a kind of 
amphiboly of the spirit in which an oscillation be- 
tween positive and negative conceptions generates 
perpetual illusion. 

In what we have called the pan-ontological theo- 
ries there is a common fault that vitiates them all. 
In these theories the spirit asserts its ideal self as the 
unity of being and non-being. But this reduces dif- 
ference ultimately to identity, which means stagna- 
tion and spiritual death rather than life. In assert- 
ing itself as the unity of being and non-being spirit 
virtually cancels itself. Now this suicidal movement 
may be discovered in all the theories which rest on 
this assumption. The Oriental thinking in its type 
is a species of negative pantheism, in which from 
a negative one the all is conceived as proceeding 
by emanation. But if the one negates plurality it is 
a contradiction to conceive a plurality as arising out 
of it. The world is, therefore, cancelled. Natural- 



270 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

ism inverts tlie mistake by conceiving the unity of 
the cosmos as emerging from a negative plurality. 
Here, however, the negation of unity in the ground 
contradicts the assumption of unity in the product, 
and the cosmos is therefore cancelled. 

The positive theories of the pantheistic type are no 
better off. In Spinozism difference arises through 
the self -limitation of being. But being can limit it- 
self and pass into its opposite only so far as it can- 
cels itself. Spinoza avoids this pit by asserting the 
unreality of being's opposite, thus cancelling differ- 
ence and reducing the universe to the stillness of a 
moveless identity. In the second species of positive 
pantheism, the conception of non-being as a move- 
ment in being identifies it with being. Difference 
is thus cancelled and the foundation taken away 
from that living dialectic of spirit the affirmation of 
which constitutes the princiiDal merit of Hegelism. 

There remains, then, positive theism, in which the 
spirit asserts the ideal of its infinite and perfect 
self as actual. Now, if we scrutinize the logic of 
positive theism we will find it to be the only religi- 
ous theory that keeps straight with the inner dialec- 
tic of spirit. We have seen how this dialectic starts 
with an intuition of being and non-being, and Iioav 
this intuition rouses the will and induces the logos 
to go out creatively into the sphere of non-being as 
well as to energize internally as a principle of self- 
realization. This dialectic keeps wholly clear of the 
confusions of being and non-being, into which the 
theories criticised above have fallen. The logos 



GOD 271 

acts on tlie dual intuition of identity and difference, 
tlie former being- tlie principle of an eternal self- 
assertion by the divine Spirit ; the latter that of an 
eternal opposition to non-being- in the activity of 
creation. It is precisely this dialectical being that 
positive theism asserts. The God of theism is the 
Logos who asserts himself and creatively opposes 
non-being-, who loves g-ood and hates evil, who gives 
light and causes darkness to flee away. The God 
of positive theism is the God of the spirit whose 
vision is unclouded and whose intuitions grasp the 
primal dualism of reality. 

The ontological jDroof of God's existence is, when 
reduced to its essence, simply the spirit's assertion 
of the actuality of its infinite ideal. The force of 
the proof lies partly in an assumption that under- 
lies it, namely, that of self-existence. But we have 
seen that this assumption is the primal datum of phi- 
losophy, namely, that primal being is self-existent. 
Now the inner dialectic of the ontological proof is 
this : self-existent being is self-active, and self-activ- 
ity is a spiritual category, and, therefore, the primal 
being is spirit. The proof asserts, if self-existence, 
then spiritual existence. God can be denied only by 
denying self-existence, which is tantamount to the 
spirit's denying itself, which is self -contradictory. 

The founders of this proof in modern philosophy 
failed to clearly apprehend the inner nerve of it. 
Anselm defines God as a being than whom a greater 
cannot be conceived, and then reasons that to deny 
his existence would leave him less than the greatest 



272 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

conceivable being-, which is contradictory. Had 
Anselm translated his quantitative conceptions into 
quality he would have seen the force of his reason- 
ing- to be that the last presupposition of all think- 
ing is self-existence, and that this presupposition 
cannot be construed under other than spiritual 
categories. The primal being is, therefore, spirit. 
Des Cartes unfolds three aspects of the same proof : 
(1) That the idea of God involves the predicate of 
existence ; (2) that the idea of God involves an ade- 
quate cause which must be an infinite and XDcrfect 
being; (3) that the idea of God is the immediate 
presupposition of man's idea of himself, and, there- 
fore, God exists. Underlying all these is a common 
dialectic process which Des Cartes did not clearly 
apprehend. For the aim of the ontological proof is 
not to establish mere existence, but rather to identify 
the idea of God with that of self-existence, which 
must be assumed. Now self-existence, as we have 
seen, is identical with self-activity, and self-activity 
is spirit. But the idea of God is that of a self-active 
spirit. It is therefore identical with that of the self- 
esistent, which must be assumed. The idea of God 
is, therefore, the spirit's assertion of the actuality of 
its ideal ; that is, of an infinite and perfect self. 

The Kantian criticism of the ontological proof 
misses the fact that the relation of ideality on which 
the iDroof rests is resolvable into the self-assertion 
of spirit. The idea of God is identical with the 
idea of self-existent being, because they are both 
identical with that of spiritual self-activity, and 



GOD 273 

spiritual self - activity is primal reality, Kant's 
thought had not reached the plane where such re- 
flection is possible, and his criticism is, therefore, 
inconclusive. 

The criticism of Kant rests, however, on the plane 
where doubt arises. The ontological proof contains, 
as we have seen, a volitional element of self-asser- 
tion, the spirit asserting its own infinite ideal as the 
highest actuality. Now, wherever will enters as a 
factor in conviction doubt is possible, for thought 
may abstract itself from will, and the mere abstract 
concept does not carry the reality of its object with 
it. From the stand-point of abstract thinking Kant 
is right and the doubt is natural. 

The historical proofs from cosmology and final 
cause are to be regarded, primariljr, as reflections 
entered ui3on by the spirit for the purpose of restor- 
ing its lost confidence in its own ideal self-assertion. 
The proof from cosmology is simj^ly the reassertion 
in an objective form of the identity between the idea 
of God and that of self-existent being. Kant's criti- 
cism of this, that it is incomplete and cannot reach 
God withoiit having recourse to ontology, is a piece 
of insight which he misuses ; for, as we have seen, 
ontology proceeds on the same assertion of identity 
but finds the clinch which realizes the whole in the 
idea of spirit as self-activity, and, therefore, primal 
being. Now, cosmology falls back upon ontology 
to the extent of borrowing this clinch from her in 
order to comx)lete its own dialectic. 

What Kant should have observed is the substan- 
18 



274: BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

tial identity of the two proofs, since tliey involve 
the same dialectic in subjective and objective forms. 
The proof from final cause is founded on a differ- 
ent principle, namely, that of sufficient reason. It 
observes in the world-series, mainly in the sphere 
of living- organisms, certain phenomena, manifesta- 
tions of a principle of unitary individuality, which 
it can explain only on the supposition that there is a 
unitary cause, and when it further analyzes this as- 
sumption of unitary cause it finds wrapped up in it 
the presupposition of self -activity, which leads by a 
further step of reflection to the assertion of self- 
active spirit. The proof from final cause thus leads 
to the same goal that is reached by the other two 
proofs. 

Kant's criticism of this proof is an act of logical 
abortion. He sees that it touches points that are 
common to ontology and cosmology, and assumes 
that it is compelled therefore to have recourse to 
these two arguments in order to complete its own 
case. What Kant fails to see is that the proof from 
final cause rests on a different principle from the 
others, that while they proceed analytically on the 
principle of identity, the argument from final cause 
proceeds synthetically on the principle of sufficient 
reason. It is, therefore, homogeneous, and expresses 
the self-assertion of spirit negatively as its refusal 
to be satisfied with any explanation that does not 
rest ultimately on a spiritual principle. 

The legitimate force of these proofs in removing 
doubt and restoring conviction may be seen from 



GOD 275 

two considerations. In the first place, they reveal 
the fact that whether our reflection proceeds syn- 
thetically or analytically, upon the principle of 
sufficient reason or upon that of identity, it reaches 
the same conclusion ; namely, that the ultimate 
ground of the world must be self-existent spirit. In 
the second place, they fit into that dialectic which 
constitutes the spirit's inner activity. This dialectic, 
as we have seen, is dual, and includes three stages 
of spiritual life ; first, that of thought, in which 
spirit thinks itself and its opposite non - being ; 
second, that of will, in which spirit affirms itself in 
the principle of identity and denies its opposite in 
the principle of sufficient reason ; third, that of love, 
in which spirit mediates the dual activities of iden- 
tity and sufficient reason in the principle of unity. 
If this dialectic be conceived as the inner activity of 
the absolute Spirit, we arrive at the intuition of the 
absolute intellect as intuiting itself and its oppo- 
site; the absolute intellect and will as affirming 
itself and going out creatively upon its negative in 
the production of the creation ; the absolute intel- 
lect, will, and love mediating the dual activities of 
the spirit and bringing the creature into unity with 
the Creator. 

If this dialectic be conceived as the inner activity 
of the human spirit, the same moments will be real- 
ized as in the absolute consciousness. There must 
first be the self-conscious thought that thinks itself 
and its opposite the not-self. This supplies the 
inner motive to the will, and the second stage arises 



276 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

in which the human spirit, as thought and will, as- 
serts itself affirmatively in the principle of identity, 
and negatively against its opposite in the principle 
of sufficient reason. But here the human spirit 
strikes ujjon the limitations of its creaturely nature. 
It is largely undeveloped i^otence passing into actu- 
ality, and its undeveloped potence limits the effec- 
tive energy of will and leads to a sense of its own 
impotence. It also limits the spirit in this sphere 
qualitatively, robbing it of the creative function, for 
it finds that the creative intelligence has been before- 
hand with it, and that its function is to rethink the 
thoughts of the Absolute and to reproduce the crea- 
tions of its jjower. The spirit finds that the pathway 
of its knowledge and experience leads it in the foot- 
steps of a creative intelligence that has preceded it. 
Now it is in this sphere where the spirit expresses 
itself in a synthesis of thought and will that the reflec- 
tions embodied in the lines of theistic proof consid- 
ered above have their rise. They arise in the human 
spirit's assertion of the ideal and infinite self, affirm- 
atively and negatively, under the categories of iden- 
tity and sufficient reason, as the ultimate ground of 
being. And they simply indicate trails which the 
finite intellect and will follow in their effort to make 
their way from the creature up to the Creator. But 
these proofs are not final or complete. There is a 
third stage in spiritual dialectic in which the spirit, 
as thought, will, and love asserts itself synthetically 
in the principle of unity. In love spirit asserts itself 
emotionally as well as intellectually and volitionally. 



GOD 277 

What tlie spirit loves as well as wills and lliinks, 
is an object of worth or value. Modern thinking 
proceeding" upon this recognition has shown a ten- 
dency to sej)arate the possessions of the spirit in- 
to two groups, labelling them respectively things 
of knowledge and things of worth or value, the one 
group catering to the intellectual satisfaction of the 
human spirit, the other to its aesthetic and moral 
demands. On the basis of this distinction a further 
distribution of principles has been made, identity 
and sufficient reason being assigned to the intellect 
or theoretic function, while to the aesthetic is allotted 
the category of unity. Against this division nothing 
special can be urged. But the unity of the spirit 
is imiDerilled when a further step is taken and it 
is proposed to effect a complete divorce of the in- 
tellectual from the aesthetic and moral spheres. 
Motives for this divorce s^Dring from two opposite 
sources : (1) from a species of neo-Kantian thought, 
which, having despaired of the intellect as an organ 
of religious truth, aims to found religion exclu- 
sively upon aesthetic and moral grounds ; (2) from a 
rationalistic type of thinking, which resents the in- 
trusion of aesthetic and moral considerations and 
aims to restrict philosophy to the plane of jaurely 
intellectual motives. It is to the interest of both 
these styles of thinking to separate the sphere of 
the aesthetic off from that of the intellect and to 
apply to it a different standard of valuation. 

No such separation is x>ossible. We have seen 
that the spirit completes itself in the third sjahere of 



278 BASAL COINTCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

its dialectic activity in tlie principle of unity. But 
this third sphere is not purely emotional, it is the 
completest expression of spiritual activity, a syn- 
thesis of the intellectual, volitional, and emotional. 
The principle of unity is not, then, a category of 
emotional satisfaction simply, but it is a category 
that embodies the whole demand of the spirit, intel- 
lectual and volitional as well as emotional. It is the 
completest and most adequate form of the spirit's 
assertion of itself. In order, then, to complete the 
proof of God's existence we must sui3plement the 
lines of evidence which have been supplied by 
identity and sufficient reason, by the evidence of 
the category of unity. The very constitution of the 
spirit forbids that we should wrest the moral de- 
mand, as Kant does, from its affiliations with the the- 
oretic reason, or that we should attempt, with Jacobi 
and Schleiermacher, to effect the same diremption 
between theoretic reason and feeling. The insight 
of the dialectic warns us that we are the rather to 
conceive the principles and demands of the theoretic 
reason as achieving their completest and ripest 
fruitage in the principle and demand of the moral 
and aesthetic nature. 

The principle of unity must then be taken as hav- 
ing the same species of authority as the principles 
of identity and sufficient reason. They are all modes 
of spiritual self-assertion. They all embod}^ de- 
mands of the spirit. And when the principle of 
unity comes with its demand for moral satisfaction 
in God, and for aesthetic satisfaction in a being in 



GOD 279 

whom it finds the fruition of the budding" hopes of 
its own nature, the demands cannot be dismissed as 
mere vain longings. They are the richest fruitage 
and the most adequate expression of that spiritual 
activity which motives the entire fabric of man's 
knowledg"e and experience. 

If God is, how is he related to the world ? This 
question has been virtually answered in preceding 
chapters. God is, in the first place, the absolute and 
transcendent ground of the world. The world is 
the product of an immanent spiritual potence which 
has as its immediate presupposition spiritual self- 
activity. This self-activity as the self -existent prius 
of all being- we have found to be God. God cannot 
be completely immanated in the world-process. 
His self-activity is a presupposition of immanent 
potence and its denial leaves no foundation for 
any immanent function. God is the Creator of the 
world. We have already in the earlier chapters of 
this book endeavored to ground rationally the crea- 
tive idea. It is only intelligible in the light of that 
living spiritual dialectic in which a key is found to 
so many mysteries. God as the Creator is the logos. 
He is God, conceived as intellect and will, assert- 
ing his divine energy in the production of the creat- 
ure out of non-being. We have seen how this neg- 
ative sphere arises as an intuition of the divine 
intellect. The logos as the divine intellect and will 
asserts its energy against non-being, producing out 
of it creature existence and the order of becoming. 
Thus the world-process is grounded. The immanent 



280 EASAL COISTCEPTS IN PPIILOSOPHY 

ground of tliis process is a spiritual poteuce wliicli 
leads it in its evolution tlirougli stages of mechan- 
ism and life up to tlie soul of man, in which spirit 
becomes self-conscious. 

As world-creator God is the logos, the will of the 
absolute spirit, uttering itself in the energy that an- 
nuls non-being and produces out of it the creature. 
But God is also related to the world as its builder and 
completer. The world as it begins is in its nature far 
from God ; it originates as unconscious matter and 
mechanical force and energy. We have seen how 
this mechanism is rationally grounded only in a po- 
tential spiritual principle. But it is the lowest po- 
tence of spirit, unconscious, undesigning, pluralistic, 
and held in the clinch of necessity. The world is fai 
from God and must be brought to him. This is the 
motive of the world-evolution which is a process of 
development along the j^athway of spirit. Now God 
as the Creator is the logos, but God as the world- 
builder and developer is the unifying Spirit. The 
principle of his activity is unity and his motive is 
love. The process of evolution is not identical with 
creation. It presupposes and in a sense includes it 
just as unity includes all other principles. The proc- 
ess of evolution is the upward progress of the creat- 
ure toward unity with the Creator. In the first stages 
of the world-process the motive of this unification is 
transcendent. The mediation which it involves is 
also transcendent, therefore, embodying itself in the 
unconscious advance of nature to higher planes of 
activity, the unconscious establishment of stores of 



GOD 281 

potential energy as the basis of nature's advances, and 
the unconscious sacrifice which is involved in the 
achievement of higher forms of life. Though tran- 
scendent, however, the motive must be conceived 
as immanent in the divine activity that pulsates at 
the heart of the world-process. God's relation to 
the world can be adequately conceived only when we 
combine the ideas of the logos and the unifying 
Spirit, the one the activity that brings the world 
into existence out of chaos, the other the activity 
that moves on the face of the deep and leads the 
world on the pathway of order and development. 

God's relations to humanity are closer because 
they enter more into consciousness. They are, how- 
ever, generically the same as his relations to the 
world. God is the Creator, the Father of the human 
spirit. He plants in man creatively the same sj^irit- 
ual principle which he immanates in the world. Man 
is part of the world-process. But this principle in 
man becomes self-conscious, and thus energizes as 
the centre of a spiritual life that allies it to its 
divine author. But man is not God. He is only his 
image ; that is, he is only a potency whose infinite 
and perfect actuality is God. God is, therefore, the 
ideal of the human s^airit. And it is because the 
spirit is conscious of this ideal that it can call God 
Father. God the logos is the creative principle of 
humanity. We have seen how through the ideal 
consciousness of man an organ of close intercommu- 
nion exists between God and the human spirit, en- 
abling God on the one hand to inform the human 



282 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

spirit with tlie norms of an ideal life, and the 
human spirit, on the other, to call God Father and 
to hold communion with him. 

God as unifying- Spirit is also the builder and 
developer of humanity. We have seen that the uni- 
fying- Spirit works under the category of unity, and 
that its energizing motive is love. This unity is 
effected by mediation, and just as we saw in the 
world below humanity that the mediational function 
transcends the consciousness of the world-forces, 
wdiich are its unwitting instruments in leading the 
world up to God, so in the evolution of humanity 
there is a stage where the true idea of this mediation 
is transcendent and its human instruments realize it 
unwittingly, or with only half consciousness. We 
have said in the chapter on Religion that the relig- 
ious prophet or founder of a new dispensation must 
be conscious of his mission. He must intend to be 
God's man, speaking the thoughts and doing the 
will of God, But this is consistent with the exist- 
ence of only a partial consciousness of the divine 
idea he is uttering. The prophet is only the organ 
which the divine energy flows into and inspires, but 
does not fully enlighten. Devout men of old spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, which had 
not as yet become immanent, so that it could speak 
in its own proper voice. 

But there comes a point in the spiritual evolution 
of the race when God becomes immanent in the 
consciousness of humanity. The mode of this has 
been considered in the previous chapter, and the 



GOD 283 

synthetic unification of the divine and human con- 
sciousness is effected in an individual soul, and the 
God-man is born into the world. Not only so, but 
the God-man consciousness is born into humanity 
and can no longer be foreign or merely transcendent 
to it. And this new birth of humanity into the di- 
vine likeness is the initiation of a new epoch in the 
mission of the spirit. The unifying- Spirit has been 
in a sense a transcendent agent in human history. 
But now the door of a new dispensation has been 
opened. The logos-ideal has become a conscious 
possession of humanity, and through and in this lo- 
gos-ideal the unifying Sx)irit becomes immanent in 
man's consciousness and functions as the regenera- 
tor, the illuminator, the sanctifier, the comforter. 
It performs the mediation of love more effectually 
than before, because now it is the spirit of the Christ, 
and through and in the Christ it enters the heart of 
humanity and leads the race on the pathway up to 
glory. Thus God as unifying Spirit energizing as 
the principle of atonement and as the heart of love, 
perfects the mediational work as God in the Christ 
reconciling the world to himself. 

God is free and sovereign in his own world. It is 
true, as we have seen in the chapter on Non-being 
and Evil, that the divine option cannot include the 
possibility of creating an absolute and immutable 
world. The idea of a created Absolute, to which this 
is tantamount, is self-contradictory. It is true also 
that the relative order is one of time and develop- 
ment, and that not even absolute power could invert 



284 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

the laws of growth and development so that the 
spiritual should be first in the temporal order, and 
then the material and mechanical. For if creative 
power could produce at a coup that which is nearest 
to itself, then the whole labor and process of crea- 
tion becomes irrational, for it would be unnecessary. 
Again, it is true that absolute power cannot g'en- 
erate a creature that shall not be mutable, and, 
therefore, conting-ent to evil. A creature that has 
not the conting"ency of evil in it must be immuta- 
ble, and therefore self-existent, which is contradic- 
tory. 

If absolute power be subject to these apparent 
limitations, how can we say that God is free and 
sovereign in his own world ? The answer is to be 
found not in denying the limitations, but in showing- 
that they are only apparent, but not real, limitations 
of power. In the first place, power is a function of 
will, and a limit arises when power falls short of will. 
Were the creative volition to go forth and no crea- 
tion be forthcoming", or were the creature to tremble 
on the verge of being and then drop back into the 
abyss of non-being, in either case the power of the 
Absolute would meet a real limit and would no longer 
be absolute. But the very supposition that the ab- 
solute volition should contemplate the creation of 
another absolute outside of itself, or in addition to 
itself, involves, as we have seen, a monstrous self-con- 
tradiction. No real limit is involved in the avoid- 
ance of self-contradiction. There is no rationality, 
but the opposite, therefore, in conceiving the neces- 



GOD 285 

sary finitiide and nmtability of the creature as im- 
posing- a limitation on absolute power. 

But is not the subjection of the creative energy, 
as it enters into the world, to the orders of time 
and development, a limitation of the absolute pow- 
er? Now, there is a sense in which this question 
becomes identical with the one considered above, 
and involves the same contradiction. It may mean 
why does not the absolute creative energy, if it be 
absolute, produce an absolute world that shall be 
perfect and immutable and not subject to the finite 
relation of tipae and development ? We do not need 
to thrash over again the old irrationality. 

Avoiding this absurdity the sober question is, 
whether the necessary subjection of relative and 
created being to the orders of time and development 
is any limitation on the iDower of the Absolute ? To 
this the answer is patent. Not if time and develop- 
ment themselves are not conceived as absolute. The 
relation of the creative energy to these categories of 
relativity is that of their founder. They are the 
modes in which the energy of the Absolute enters 
into relative production. Development is a category, 
therefore, which depends on the Absolute, and in- 
stead of shutting God out of his world, or limiting 
his power, its whole rationality rests in its neces- 
sary presupposition of the transcendent function 
of the Absolute. We saw in the chapters on History 
and Religion, as well as in those on Cosmic, Organic, 
and Psychic Nature, how development necessitates 
the perpetual inflow of energy from absolute springs. 



286 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

If development is God's creature and rests directly 
upon the divine energy it can contain no real limit 
of the divine power. 

Analogous considerations bear on the problem of 
the temporal order. If we make time absolute, then 
God must work in time, and the accomplishment of 
his purposes will have to wait. And so between the 
creative fiat and the completion of the world seons 
must elapse sufficient to tire, if possible, even the 
divine patience. " God spake and it Avas done " thus 
becomes a poetic fiction, and the true idea of the deity 
is that of one who must wait through all the ages for 
the accomplishment of his purposes, while in the 
meantime rack and ruin are threatening the world. 
Such a view is irrational. Time can be conceived as 
only relative, and, as such, a creature of the Absolute. 
Lotze argues this question very subtly in his " Dic- 
tata on the Philosophy of Religion." God, he says, 
cannot be conceived as being hi time. His relation to 
time is that of its founder. Now if God founds time, 
"its free ends" — this is Lotze's phrase — must con- 
verge in God. The consciousness of God will there- 
fore be related in the same way to all the parts of time. 
There will be no vanishing past or oncoming future, 
but the whole temporal order will be what the psy- 
chologists call a " specious present." This view of 
time brings God into immediate relation with every 
part of the world. It closes up the chasm between 
the divine purpose and its fulfilment. It brings the 
world-idea in God's mind, and the world-end as it 
embodies itself in the far-oif divine event, into im- 



GOD 287 

mediate relation. It restores tlie old sublime con- 
ception of God's free sovereignty over his own 
world. God speaks and it is done. God does not 
have to wait through the long ages for the fulfil- 
ment of his designs. To God the end and the be- 
ginning are one. The weary waiting, the long ages 
of gradual evolution, the purpose back in eternity, 
and the fulfilment yonder, are ours. These things 
are true for us, they are necessary categories of the 
relative, but to God all things are present, open and 
immediate. 

God's life is immutable and eternal. Therefore 
the soul's faith in God creates in it a divine thirst 
for immortality. The synthesis between belief in 
God and belief in immortality is normal and natu- 
ral. Belief in God may be eclipsed, and then the 
rose of immortality begins to fade. But the resto- 
ration of the spirit's belief in the actuality of its own 
infinite ideal brings with it a revival of faith in an 
infinite progress of the spirit toward the ideal. The 
law of the soul's life, as we have seen, is that of 
progress toward the ideal. Whatever vivifies the 
ideal, therefore, and makes it real, will stimulate the 
ideal aspirations of the soul and gender in it the 
idea of a life that is commensurate with their reali- 
zation. In the olden time, before the Christ-idea 
became a possession of humanity, when the abso- 
Ivite Spirit was wont to work in a transcendent 
manner, the idea of an immortal life could not "be 
fully apprehended. But when the Christ-idea be- 
came immanent, then the thought of the immortal 



288 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

life came into tlie foreground, and as it grew clear 
and definite man's faitli in it became a firm and liv- 
ing conviction. 

There are two species of difficulty which, the faith 
in immortality has been obliged to meet, one phil- 
osophical and the other scientific. The former takes 
various forms, but here, since our conception of 
the human soul is generically the same as Aristo- 
tle's, the difficulty will be also of the Aristotelian 
type. Aristotle distinguishes between the active 
and passive reason (vov? TrotT^TtKos and vov^ Tra^r^rtKo?), 
and connecting the latter with the corporeal X3rin- 
ciple, as a function is related to its organ, conceives 
that at death it perishes, and that the active reason 
alone is the immortal principle in the soul. Aris- 
totle teaches the doctrine of immortality, but inas- 
much as the root of personality is by him located in 
the passive reason, the difficulty has been to conceive 
the survival of any principle of personal and indi- 
vidual consciousness. This difficulty led the Ara- 
bian commentators on Aristotle in the middle ages, 
as a rule, to pronounce against the personal immor- 
tality of the soul, and this was one of the chief 
points of controversy between them and the later 
schoolmen. We avoid the difficulty, however, when 
we conceive the soul itself to be a developing spirit- 
ual principle which is continually passing from po- 
tence to actuality, and thus as including a synthesis 
of the passive and active rationality in its own con- 
stitution. This dual constitution also, as we have 
seen, involves the possibility of a conscious individ- 



CxOD 289 

ual life distinct from tliat of the Absolute. It is clear 
that Aristotle did not realize to the full the signifi- 
cance of his own principle, or if so, that his com- 
mentators have not fully understood him. For if we 
conceive the soul as containing- in its constitution 
the dual moments of potence and actuality, we have 
an idea of its nature which renders the persistence 
of its distinctive life both conceivable and rational. 

The scientific difficulty may be stated as follows : 
Modern science has come to regard the brain as the 
organ of conscious life, and our modern thinking 
finds it hard to conceive any idea of conscious 
psychic existence apart from a brain. The diffi- 
culty seems to increase as physiological knowledge 
grows in accuracy and detail. Not only do we 
always find psychic consciousness in connection 
with a brain, but the method of difference seems to 
demonstrate that where there is no brain there can 
be no consciousness. A blow on the head causes a 
cessation of consciousness ; a lesion of a particular 
part interrupts the flow of some portion of the con- 
scious stream. Brain conditions seem to determine 
conscious states, and as an organized whole as well 
as in its molecular constitution nerve-tissue seems 
to constitute an indispensable condition of psychic 
life. 

This difficulty would be insurmountable, we 
think, if the relation between the human soul and 
its corporeal organism were conceived as one of 
mutually exclusive entities. The fact that it is ordi- 
narily so conceived simply testifies to the survival 
19 



290 BASAL COjS-CEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

of the Cartesian dualism. The whole theory of this 
treatise is, however, a denial of that view and an 
assertion of a merely relative distinction between 
them, one that is mediated by a spiritual j)rinciple. 
Matter is the first potency of spirit, and mechanism 
and its laws are spiritual in their foundations. Now 
as the soul is not only a part of the world-energ-y, 
but also an epitome and synthesis of it, there is log-- 
ically involved in the idea of the soul that of a prin- 
ciple which holds in it a duality of potencies, mate- 
rial and spiritual. We thus transfer the bond which 
binds the material and spiritual together from an 
external position to its seat in the soul itself. And 
by so doing we arrive at the conception of a dual 
psychic constitution, which contains in itself the 
germs of both material and spiritual organiza- 
tion. The corporeal organism may dissolve, then, 
and the basal constitution of the soul will still re- 
main intact as the norm of a continuous life of 
conscious growth and activity. And when the idea 
of an ultimate Psychic constitution has once been 
achieved, the presumption of science changes, for it 
is then seen that the dissolution of the body does 
not necessitate the destruction of the soul. 

Thus the negative presumptions of philosophy and 
science are overcome, and the spirit is left free to 
assert its own ideal life. It is the same voice of 
the spirit under the same category of unity that de- 
mands both the divine ideal and the unending life. 
It is in this dual synthesis of God and immortality 
that the soul finds the satisfaction of its thirst for 



GOD 291 

unity and completeness. In the same synthesis is 
found an unfailing- well-spring of joyous and hope- 
ful activity both for the individual soul and for hu- 
manity. 

Man is born an heir to immortal existence. The 
voice that cries out in him for an unending life is 
the utterance of his deepest nature. But the soul 
tragedy of modern life is that the intellect has 
grown sceptical and contradicts the deeper voice 
of the spirit. The spirit cries out for immortality, 
but the intellect says, Cease your striving, nor vain- 
ly imagine that the universe exists only for your 
delectation. But the soul's demand is vital and 
its disappointment means death. So the waters of 
existence become bitter to the palate, and the fine 
spiritual nature, robbed of its holiest birthright, 
plunges into pessimistic despair and longs for some 
Lethe stream in which to forget its troubled dream. 
Or, if it wills to live bravely on and work, the joys 
of life become apples of Sodom in its mouth and 
the solid structure of the world that surrounds it 
shrinks into a mere veil of illusion behind which 
stalks, not Nirvana, but the gaunt spectre of Abad- 
don. For when the immortal hope is gone, life 
shrinks into a thing of shreds and patches and all 
philosophy becomes in truth " a meditation on 
death and annihilation." 



XVIII 

SPIKITUAL ACTIVITY 

We have seen that primal bemg" can be conceived 
only as self-activity. Self-activity is activity that 
contains its primal impulse within itself. Self- ac- 
tivity is also self-conscious activity. And we have 
seen that self - conscious activity is self -asserting- 
and self-realizing". We mean this when we say that 
primal being is spirit. 

The dialectic of spirit is the form of its activity. 
The dialectic presupposes the primal motive. Why 
being should be active is a question that transcends 
all answer. We assume it when we say primal be- 
ing- is self-activity. Its first impulse to action is 
identical with itself. Now this first impulse is the 
initial step of the dialectic. The moments of it are 
all pulsations of self-assertion. The initial pulsa- 
tion, as we have seen, is one of intellection. Being 
is primally intelligent and rational. Its first activ- 
ity is thought, a thought in which the primal im- 
pulse embodies itself. It thinks itself. But the 
primal impulse reveals the primal distinction. The 
thought that thinks itself also thinks its opposite. 
It is as impossible to derive difference as it is to de- 



SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY 293 

rive identity. They are involved in the primal im- 
pulse of being. It is the essence of spirit to think 
the same and the different. 

The result of the primal impulse is the dual intui- 
tion of being's self, and being's not-self, or of being 
and non-being. It is here that we strike upon the 
crucial point of the whole dialectic of spirit. When 
in this primal activity being- thinks the not - self, 
does it simply negate itself and then by another 
act negate the negation, and thus reach self-affirma- 
tion through negation? Or, putting it in another 
form, is it being that goes out as the nothing and 
then returns again as a higher form of being ? This 
is the ordinary Hegelian interpretation. We think a 
radical reform is needed at this cardinal point. Be- 
ing never denies itself except in a relative sense. 
Its negation is directed against its opposite. We 
would then construe the movement of the primal 
impulse as follows. When in accordance with the 
original dual category being thinks the not-self, it 
thinks objectively, and its intuition is of that which 
negates self ; that is, the opposite of self. Now the 
intuition of that which is ojoposite to self is a point 
of reaction for what is called the return upon self, 
which means the reassertion of the self against its 
opposite, or the reassertion of identity against differ- 
ence. We may speak by a species of dialectic license 
of this movement as a return of being out of nothing 
upon itself, or as a return of identity out of differ- 
ence, if we avoid the contradictory assumption that 
being has ever lost itself in nothing, or identity in 



294 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

diflference. The distinction here is just as primal as 
the thinking- itself, for it is constitutional to it. The 
primal movement of spirit, as we have said, is self- 
assertion, and in this primal intellection it is self-as- 
sertion through identity and difference. This does 
not mean, however, that spirit thinks itself as the 
same and then thinks itself as the different ; that 
is, as the not-self. Spirit is not the arch-jug-gier of 
the universe. What is meant is something- simpler. 
Spirit thinks itself as the same ; that is, the self be- 
comes conscious of itself. Spirit thinks the not-self 
as different ; that is, the self becomes conscious of 
a not-self, as its different or opposite. The primal 
dialectic of thinking is between the same and the 
different. But they are never identified. The intel- 
lectual impulse has nothing erudite about it. To 
it being and nothing are not identical but opposite, 
and the true genius of intellection is sacrificed when- 
ever this distinction is obscured. 

To be clear on this cardinal point settles the 
whole dialectic of spirit. The other moments fol- 
low from the nature of spirit as self-conscious activ- 
ity. The intuition of the negative or non-being 
constitutes a motive that determines the procession 
of the spirit. The primal imx)ulse to self-assertion 
in view of this intuition becomes self - assertion 
against the negative, in a volitional form ; that is, as 
the will to suppress and annul the negative. Now, 
absolute will is self -active and moves upon the nega- 
tive or non-being as energy of creation. The crea- 
tive impulse is not primal, if we use the term in a 



SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY 295 

logical sense, but has as its presupposition the ac- 
tivity of absolute intellection which reveals the 
negative sphere. Creation is thus both rational and 
volitional and may be conceived as the will to annul 
non- being by the production of forms of being. 
But here again our thinking must avoid entangle- 
ment. In creation the distinction of being and 
non-being is not annulled. Creation is not a proces- 
sion of the Absolute in a relative and finite dress. 
Relativity and finitude are more than appearances ; 
they are constitutional to the creature. The abso- 
lute will does not finitate or limit itself in the crea- 
tion. The idea of absolute self-limitation involves 
that of the annihilation of energy and is self -contra- 
dictory. 

The only possible concept of a creature is that of 
a nature that contains opposite momenta of being 
and non-being. Plato in the Timseus clothes a true 
intuition in symbols. The Demiurge compounds 
opposite ingredients, the same and the other, into 
a third existence, in which the intractable nature 
of the other is compressed into synthesis with the 
same. The creative energy annuls non- being by 
generating a created nature into which non-being, 
while it enters as a dividual, separative, dissolutive 
condition, is held in subordination by the unitary 
principle of being ; that is, the principle of self-con- 
scious spiritual activity. 

The dual nature of the creature thus originates, a 
nature that is ever in a state of flux, as Plato says, 
and that is ever oscillating between the opposite 



296 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

poles of being and non-being. And it is this dual 
nature of tlie creature, as we saw in the first chapters 
of this book, that renders it open to change and 
evolution. Being does not limit itself in the crea- 
tion, but the negative element is the limit that re- 
duces sjoiritual energy to potence and thus makes 
development essential. 

Now, it is in connection with the evolution of the 
creature that the third movement in the dialectic 
of spirit arises. Evolution is to be conceived as 
the gradual development of the principle of being 
in the nature of the creature, from potence to actual- 
ity, through a progressive suppression or transcen- 
dence of the negative. Being can grow only through 
the transcendence, the annulling of non-being. And 
non-being can be completely transcended only in the 
unification of the creature with the Creator through 
an infinite approximation. Spirit's primal impulse 
of self - assertion, in view of the negative char- 
acter of the creature, its distance and alienation 
from actualized spirit, is to go out in the energy of 
love as a developing and mediating force of unifica- 
tion. But here again our thinking must keep clear 
of entanglements. It is not the unity of being and 
non-being that is conserved in this developing proc- 
ess. Non- being is annulled and suppressed from 
the beginning to the end of it. It is the unity of 
being and becoming, the creature and the Creator, 
that is conserved. And the negative side of this con- 
serving process is the war against and the suppres- 
sion of non-being. 



SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY 297 

TJiis dialectic of spirit wliicli thus passes tliroug-li 
the moments of negation, creation and unification 
is completely realized only when we conceive it in 
a twofold manner, (1) on its subjective side as a 
logical self - completion of spirit in the unity of 
thought, volition, and love ; (2) on its objective side 
as the progressive completion of the creature 
through the momenta of creation and evolution, 
culminating in the final mediation and unity of 
creature and Creator. 

Thus we conceive the movement of absolute spirit 
under its own categories. Subject to the limita- 
tions of its finite nature the dialectic of the human 
spirit is to be conceived under the same categories. 
We have already in the chapter on Knowledge de- 
veloped the process of the intellectual life in which it 
travels through the categories of identity and dif- 
ference and sufiicient reason up to that of unity, 
under which it realizes the rational ideal of knowl- 
edge. We have only to translate the stages of this 
progress into volitional terms in order to see how 
the whole practical life of man becomes a battle 
with the negative, a struggle to overcome the world. 
The life of the spirit is a conflict waged positively, 
as the spirit's assertion of itself in the progress of 
its own inner evolution and the development of its 
spiritual potences, negatively as a battle against 
negation and evil, and as a refusal to be satisfied 
with anything short of the highest good. 

And this ideal is realized only through the unify- 
ing activity of love. In the absolute sphere unity 



298 BASAL CONCEPTS IIST PHILOSOPHY 

of the Creator and his world is effected, as we have 
seen, only throug-h the activity of love manifesting- 
itself on the broad arena of nature and humanity 
and realizing itself throug-h mediation and sacrifice. 
This is also the law of the human spirit. In the 
unifying- activity of love the spirit asserts itself 
negatively in the progressive annulment of the 
negative forces that hinder spiritual develoiiment ; 
in its progressive triumph over sin and evil in the 
individual and common life of humanity ; in the 
war of extermination that it perpetually wages 
against selfishness and falsehood. It asserts itself 
positively in the rise of the spirit's activity, through 
comprehension, into ever larger and larger spheres 
of life. Thus, for example, the life of the individual 
is transcended and comprehended in the larger life 
of the family. That of the family is transcended 
and comprehended in the larger life of the commun- 
ity and the institutions of church and state, while 
the supreme unification is reached in the sphere of 
religion where the larger life of humanity is brought 
into ideal harmony with God. 

Thus the larger life of the human spirit realizes 
itself, but not without renunciation. The supjDres- 
sion of the negative is an inseparable accompani- 
ment of positive growth. The spirit, in order to 
enter into the higher and broader life, must deny 
its lower and less developed self by throwing oif 
restrictions and hinderances. In order to enter into 
the larger life of the family, the state, the church, 
or the race, the old man must be put off and the 



SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY 299 

new man must be put on. And that larg-est and su- 
premest life of tlie spirit, whicli it enters into in the 
religious sphere, the life with God, is conditioned 
on the supremest act of self-renunciation. Here 
the war with the negative reaches its final stage, 
where on the one side the demand for self-renuncia- 
tion and annulment is most absolute, while on the 
other the comprehension and unification is most 
complete. For through all its renunciations the 
spirit carries its true self with it ; only the nega- 
tive, the imperfect, the evil is progressively cast 
aside, while the real self ever increases its riches 
as it merges into larger and more comprehensive 
spheres of activity. 

We have only to complete this idea of the strug- 
gle of the human spirit with the idea of its depend- 
ence upon its absolute ground, in order to obtain 
a key to the whole life of humanity. The human 
spirit cannot conserve its own development, but 
in unity with the absolute source of its being it 
may, through constant accessions of transcendent 
strength and grace, be able to overcome all the 
forces of negation and evil and to advance continu- 
ally in the progressive stages of an endless life. 



CONCLUSION 

Looking back over the path we have travelled in 
this inquiry several reflections suggest themselves 
in conclusion. In the first place, we have found 
in personality the highest category of interpretation 
in the spheres of both the relative and the Absolute. 
Now personality is first known as a psychological 
fact in the soul's experience, and the inference would 
seem to follow that all philosophy rests on psychol- 
ogy. This we shall not attempt to deny. The spirit 
of the knower must be able to find in itself the clews 
to all the mysteries of being, so far as they may be 
resolved. At the same time the dependence of phil- 
osophy on psychology cannot be construed in any 
narrow or exclusive sense. Philosophy is not simply 
an extension of psychology. An inquiry such as the 
present one has been, is fitted to open our eyes to the 
fact that our psychological categories only become 
philosophically competent after they have, so to 
speak, passed through the historic medium and em- 
bodied themselves objectively in the experience of 
humanity. The psychological categories must, in 
short, be translated from subjective to objective 
universals. The fact that only history is compe- 
tent to this translation renders that insight which 



CONCLUSION 301 

only comes from a real knowledge of the historic 
evolution of thought indispensable to philosophy. 
The true organ of philosophy is constituted by a syn- 
thesis of the spiritual insights of both psychology 
and history. 

The truth of this is demonstrated in the instance 
of personality. The riches of this category never 
would yield themselves to introspective and sub- 
jective analysis alone. Far less would they give up 
their secrets to the exclusive analysis of the individ- 
ual consciousness. The full significance of personal- 
ity emerges only in the objective thinking and the 
spiritual experience of the race, and it is only when 
the spirit finds its subjective categories embodied 
for it in these objective forms that they become ad- 
equate to the demands of philosophy. 

There may be some who will think that in the 
attempt to break the agnostic limitations we have 
gone too far toward the gnostic extreme. But such 
persons may be reassured. The intelligence of the 
creature will always find that the Creator has been 
beforehand with it, so that, penetrate as far as it may, 
it will find itself only tracing the footsteps of an 
absolute intelligence that has preceded it. Besides, 
the aim of this whole inquiry has been to penetrate 
the mysteries of the Absolute only so far as may 
be necessary in order to discover how it rationally 
grounds the relative order. The category of per- 
sonality conceived as an immanent activity of being 
gives us this insight, but we know not, and doubt- 
less can never know, what abysses of the Absolute 



302 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

still remain unpenetrated. The category of person- 
ality does not abolish mystery, but simply lifts the 
veil a little way and reveals a glimpse of the cre- 
ative energ-y in its relation to the world. 

Our inquiry has also tested the value of the dual 
categories being and non-being in solving phil- 
osophic problems and in developing the outlines 
of a coherent and comprehensive theory. Whatever 
speculative difficulties may yet remain, the working 
power of these conceptions can no longer be ques- 
tioned. It may be maintained with Hegel that the 
highest category is an absolute idea which compre- 
hends the dual moments, being and non-being, 
within itself. To this we may yield a qualified as- 
sent, provided this idea be translated into spirit and 
its dialectic be conceived as on its affirmative side, 
self-affirmation, but on its neg'ative side the denial 
of its opposite. The reform in Hegelism, which has 
been urged throughout this inquiry, may be ex- 
pressed in the following statement : being must be 
identified with spirit. The inner movement of spirit 
is a dual dialectic in which spirit asserts itself and 
denies its opposite. The dual movement is thus im- 
manent in being. But the negative which spirit 
denies is not in being. It is an oppositive excluded 
conception, which spirit forever wars against and 
suppresses, but which never passes into its opposite. 
The negative activity of spirit thus becomes from 
one point of view an outgoing oppositive energy, as 
distinguished from the immanent activity of self-af- 
firmation, while from another point of view it is the 



CONCLUSION 303 

volitional energy of creation and development. This 
conception of absolute spirit in its dual activity ren-^ 
ders its whole relation to the relative order, includ- 
ing- evil and negation, botli intelligible and rational. 

The current thinking of our time can find no 
better answer to the question how it happens that 
an absolute energy x3roduces only a relative and 
imperfect creature, than the assertion that the Ab- 
solute imposes a limit upon itself and voluntarily 
restrains its creative energies within finite bounds 
when otherwise the result would have been infinite 
and perfect. Now it is clear that no theory of ar- 
bitrary self-restraint can supply the ground of a 
rational explanation, and if the conception is to 
be saved from becoming positively irreligious it 
must be subsumed under the category of the good. 
The only motive, in other words, that can make such 
self-restraint reasonable must be derived from the 
absolute goodness. But in view of the actual evil 
that has arisen out of the finitude and imperfection 
of things the goodness of the Absolute cannot be 
vindicated, if, as the theory in question implies, the 
creative will had before it an option between the 
generation of an infinite and perfect world, and one 
that is finite and imperfect. For the fact remains, 
on this suiDposition, that a world-scheme which in- 
volves the contingency and actuality of evil has 
been preferred to one from which these features are 
absent. 

A rational insight into the negative cuts the knot 
of the difficulty by helping us to see that the suppo- 



304 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

sition of such an option is irrational and that tho 
only option conceivably before the absolute will is 
a choice between x)ure negation and a finite and rel- 
ative order of being-. It is no impeachment of abso- 
lute power that its outgoing energy does not gener- 
ate another absolute alongside of itself, nor is it any 
impeachment of the absolute goodness that it pre- 
fers to non-being a relative and finite order of being 
which involves the contingency of evil. We have 
seen that the true significance of the world-order 
can be seen only in the light of the highest concep- 
tions of religion, and that from the stand -point of 
religion evil becomes a subordinate though real feat- 
ure of the world, while the good stands supreme as 
the end and rationale of its whole history and devel- 
opment. 

Furthermore, our reflection enables us to conceive 
a rational solution of the issues between monism 
and dualism, on the one hand, and idealism and 
realism on the other. A monistic theory of reality 
which identifies it with being must always be in- 
adequate since the real must include the opposite of 
being, which can never be identified with being with- 
out transgressing basal principles. Also any mon- 
istic theory must be inadequate which ignores the 
distinction between the Absolute and the relative 
and seeks to apply a unitary principle, let it be 
spiritual or material, without regard to that distinc- 
tion. For in that case, if we start from absolute 
being, we will miss the actual duality of the relative, 
whereas if we take our departure from the relative we 



CONCLUSION 305 

will never be able to conceive any point where a tran- 
sition of the real from relative to absolute is possible. 
And this inability will carry with it the impossibility 
of assurance as to the existence of the Absolute. 

A rational metaphysic will admit the distinction 
between being and reality, and while asserting- the 
unitary character of the one will acknowledge the 
duality of the other. The real includes the negative 
of being. It will also admit the distinction between 
being and becoming, and while asserting the unitary 
character of being wdll admit the duality of becoming. 
In short, a rational metaphysic is identical with a 
spiritualistic theory of reality, which, postulating an 
absolute spirit as the self-existent principle of things, 
is able to see not only how the necessity of non- 
being springs from this postulate, but also how 
the negative supplies a necessary datum of the rel- 
ative, accounting for its modified and dualistic char- 
acter. Monism is right when it says there is only 
one principle of being, but it is mistaken when it 
identifies being and reality, and on that basis denies 
the reality of the negative. 

The issue between idealism and realism is not so 
stringent. There are several types of theory which 
a spiritualistic metaphysic will reject. One of these 
is a type of ontologic idealism which suppresses 
volition and feeling in the interests of abstract 
thought. Another is a species of subjective psy- 
chological idealism which ignores the ontologic as- 
pect of reality and completely identifies the object 
of knowledge with the subjective psychic process 



306 BASAL COlSrCEPTS IlSr PHILOSOPHY 

tlirough which it is apprehended. Still a third type 
is a species of realism which assumes the distinction 
between spirit and matter to be absolute, thus, by 
implication at least, carrying- the duality of sub- 
stances up into the nature of the Absolute. 

The truth which metaphysics is chiefly concerned 
to assert is that the real is primally spiritual. A 
spiritualistic theory leads, as we have seen, to the 
recognition of a distinction between the Absolute 
and the relative and the inclusion of both in the 
synthesis of reality. This makes it impossible to 
reduce the relative to mere appearance. The rela- 
tive is real. It has its roots in the Absolute, but it 
is not a mere schein of the Absolute. We have seen 
that relativity has a distinctive constitution and type 
which make it analogous to a word that, once ut- 
tered, cannot be recalled. The word of the Absolute 
endureth forever. Moreover, in the relative sphere 
the material is not a mere schein of the spiritual. 
We have seen that the law of relativity is, first the 
material, then the spiritual ; that the spiritual cate- 
gories are the highest. But this does not mean the 
suppression of the material or its reduction to un- 
reality. In achieving the spiritual, the material and 
mechanical are gone through but not left behind. 
The material stands there hard and durable, and 
the moment of mechanism is ever present in the 
highest manifestations of spirit. The world is a 
solid and firm -jointed reality which confronts the 
knower and fills his categories with objective con- 
tent from the beginning to the end of the process of 



CONCLUSION- 307 

experience.* A theory which thus asserts a system 
of reality at the heart of which pulsates the personal 
energ-y of spirit may be idealistic in its concej^tion 
of the mode of knowledge, since knowledge and re- 
ality must be distinguished, but it will be realistic 
in its metaphysic. Not the idea, but concrete spirit 
is the primal unit of being. If, however, the idea 
should be identified with concrete spirit and en- 
riched with a content of volition and love, and then 
its exponent should cling to idealism as the best 
designation of his creed, the issue is not one over 
which philosophy need go to pieces. 

Ag'ain, in view of conclusions already established, 
we think a settlement of the issue between natural- 
ism and supernaturalism becomes practicable. Hux- 
ley points with some concern to the victorious march 
of naturalism in our modern thinking. Everywhere 
the supernatural is falling into discredit, and even 
religion, if it would avoid the charge of superstition, 
must assume a naturalistic garb. Now there is a 
scientific naturalism which is sound and, in fact, 
necessary. Science deals with causation and de- 
velopment, and we have seen that these are categories 
of the natural series. Not only the sciences of nat- 
ure but psychology and history are obliged to be 
naturalistic in this sense. Now between such nat- 
uralism and spiritualism there is no issue. The 
cause and the movement may be both spiritual and 
material. Wlien, however, naturalism is carried over 

* In this we simply reassert the position which McCosh and the 
Scottish thinkers maintain against what may he called phenomenal 
idealism. 



308 BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY 

into metaphysics as an exclusive category it becomes 
false. The first presuiDposition of metaphysics is the 
Absolute, which is both transcendent and super- 
natural. The metaphysical ground of an adequate 
world-theory is a synthesis of the natural and phe- 
nomenal with this supernatural ground. Metaphy- 
sics must affirm a synthesis of natural and super- 
natural, and this synthesis must also be found at the 
heart of every adequate philosophy of religion. The 
suppression of the supernatural carries with it the 
death of true naturalism. 

Lastly, we have in our inquiry been led to see 
how a rational solution of the modern antinomy be- 
tween the ideas of immanence and transcendence is 
possible. We do not any longer need to work the 
old treadmill of annulling one in the supposed in- 
terest of the other, for we have seen that they are 
not contradictory, but rather complementary con- 
ceptions. The first presupposition of all being is a 
self -existent Absolute which stands as the transcen- 
dent ground and principle of the world. The Avorld 
is generated by the outgoing volitional energy of 
this Absolute. But the creative energy itself enters 
into the world as the immanent spring of its exist- 
ence and development. The Creator is in his world, 
but he is not wholly swallowed up by it. A synthe- 
sis of immanence and transcendence is necessary in 
order to rationalize the world. We are not oblig'ed, 
then, to be either deists or pantheists, but true 
philosophic insight will lead us to a religious posi- 
tion in which the shortcomings of both are escaped. 






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